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Sharing out land: two passages in the Corpus agrimensorum romanorum*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

J. B. Campbell
J. B. Campbell
Affiliation:
The Queen' University, Belfast
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Extract

Virgil, in his description of the establishment of a new city by Aeneas for those Trojans who wished to remain in Sicily, is thinking of the Roman practice of colonial foundation: ‘Meanwhile Aeneas marked out the city with the plough and allocated the houses (by lot)’. We may note the personal role of the founder, the ploughing of the ritual first furrow, the organized grants to the settlers and the equality of treatment implied in the use of lot (sortiri). Virgil was writing at the end of the first century B.C. at a time of great activity in land distribution, but the Romans had been founding colonies from the mid fourth century. Each colony involved the creation of an urban area and the settlement of people on the surrounding agricultural land, and so perpetuated the city state, which was central to ancient life and culture. Indeed a colony was a smaller image of Rome itself. In the early Republic, colonies, either of Latins or of Roman citizens, were established on the periphery of Roman territory, largely for military and strategic reasons. Between 200 and 173 B.C. more than 40,000 may have received plots of land, amounting to about 1,000 square miles of territory. Later, the motives for colonial foundations became more complex, being closely connected with increasing economic and political problems. There can have been few more important aspects in the development of colonies than the need to find land for discharged troops. These in the main were rank and file soldiers who would expect equal shares in land allocations.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 45 , Issue 2 , December 1995 , pp. 540 - 546
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1995

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References

1 Aen 5.755–6, ‘Interea Aeneas urbem designat aratro/sortiturque domos’ (cf. 7.157).

2 Gellius, Aulus, Nodes Atticae 16. 13. 9Google Scholar.

3 Frank, T., An Economic Survey of Ancient Rome I (Baltimore, 1933Google Scholar; repr. 1959), pp. 122–4; Salmon, E. T., Roman Colonization under the Republic (London, 1969), pp. 95–109Google Scholar.

4 Keppie, L., Colonisation and Veteran Settlement in Italy, 47 14 B.C. (British School at Rome, 1983), pp. 58–86Google Scholar; Brunt, P. A., Italian Manpower (Oxford, 1971), pp. 319–44; 473–512; see also Salmon (n. 3), pp. 128–44Google Scholar.

5 The standard editions of the texts in the Corpus Agrimensorum Romanorum are: Blume, F., Lachmann, K., Rudorff, A., Die Schriften der römischen Feldmesser (Berlin, 1848–1852Google Scholar, repr. 1962), and Thulin, C., Corpus Agrimensorum Romanorum, vol. l.i (Leipzig, 1913Google Scholar, repr. 1971, hereafter T). The most important authors are Frontinus (late first-early second century A.D., if he is Sextus Julius Frontinus, consul III in A.D. 100), Siculus Flaccus (possibly second century A.D.), Hyginus 1 (c. A.D. 100) and Hyginus 2 (probably distinct from Hyginus 1 and often designated ‘Gromaticus’ on the basis of the corrupt tradition of the manuscript headings; this author is probably not later than third century A.D.).

6 See AE 1975.251 (Vespasian), and cf. Keppie, L., PBSR 52 (1984), 98–104Google Scholar; Smallwood, E. M., Documents illustrating the Principates of Nerva, Trajan and Hadrian (Cambridge, 1966), no. 313 (Trajan)Google Scholar.

7 For a summary of the variations in the size of centuriae, see Dilke, O. A. W., The Roman Land Surveyors (Newton Abbot, 1971), pp. 84–5Google Scholar.

8 For a general outline of the work of land surveyors, see Dilke (n.7); Hinrichs, F. T., Die Geschichte der gromatischen Institutionen (Wiesbaden, 1974)Google Scholar; Behrends, O., Colognesi, L. Capogrossi (eds.), Die römische Feldmesskunst (Gottingen, 1992)Google Scholar; Chouquer, G., Favory, F., Les arpenteurs romains: théorie et pratique (Paris, 1992)Google Scholar; Moatti, C., Archives et partage de la terre dans le monde romain (IIe siécle avant-Ier siécle aprés J. -C) (Rome, 1993)Google Scholar. See also diagram 1.

9 Staveley, E. S., Greek and Roman Voting and Elections (London, 1972), pp. 230–32Google Scholar; for the practice in Greek city states, ibid., pp. 54–7.

10 See Plautus, , Casina, 296; 380Google Scholar.

11 Note that at Praeneste and Antium sortes were used as a form of divination (Cicero, , De divin. 2.85Google Scholar; Livy, 22.1.10–12).

12 Ennius (239–169 B.C.) in the tragedy Cresphontes may have in mind Roman practice in land settlements. Referring to a lottery for Messenia, he describes how ‘they drew lots among themselves for the city and the land’ —Jocelyn, H. D., The Tragedies of Ennius (Cambridge, 1967), 58Google Scholar = Vahlen, J., Ennianae Poesis Reliquiae 2 (Leipzig, 1928), p. 139Google Scholar.

13 Carmina 3.1.14–16.

14 T 14.3–5.

15 I here print the text of Thulin's edition, incorporating some minor changes proposed there (T 73.6–24). Words in square brackets were probably glosses. In the following translation I have transposed lines 9–10 (marked *) to line 5 (see p. 543).

16 Professor Dilke suggested to me that lines 9–10 were possibly a gloss explaining lines 2–5, and that this was then mistakenly incorporated into the text.

17 As suggested by Moatti (n. 8), p. 28. It is possible that one name was inscribed to represent each group; cf. Hyginus 2 (below, p. 545).

18 The importance of accepting with equanimity whatever the lot produced is illustrated by Agennius Urbicus, who is probably following Frontinus (T 43.23–4). The area (modus) of a settler's original allocation (accepta) remained the basis for subsequent adjudication (T 35.8–10).

19 T 162.12–164.5, with correction of a misprint (XLVI for LXVI) in Thulin's text at 164.3 (line 20).

20 The tabula was a wax-covered wooden tablet which could serve as a public record; cf. Seneca, Dial. 10.13.4, where tabulae are equated with codices.

21 Hyginus l's method of sortition for groups of ten seems more complicated, or is perhaps less clearly explained. Sortition takes place on three occasions—first for the land, second to establish an order for the groups of ten, third to establish an order within the groups of ten, whereas in Hyginus 2's system the second and third stages are achieved simultaneously. Moatti (n. 8), pp. 28–9 thinks that the sortition described by Hyginus 2 at lines 12–13 was merely to establish groups of three where there was no agreement on their composition. The difficulty is that there is then no mention in the text of any lottery to establish an order within each group of three. Moatti mistakenly cites T162.19–163.1 (5–8), which in fact refers only to sortition for individual settlers where no division into groups of three is contemplated. There is nothing in the texts to support the view that there were only two methods for distributing land to groups of settlers, either in threes or tens (cf. Moatti (n. 8), p. 27).

22 T 73.24; 141.7–8—‘they were settled along with their standards, eagle, centurions, and tribunes, and land was allocated in proportion to the rank they had held’. Hyginus 2 is here referring to the period of the late republic when entire legions were settled. Cf. T 144.13–16 (the principle of equal access to the forum for all colonists). Siculus Flaccus also mentions equal distributions to soldiers (T 119.9), though he recognizes that there were many exceptions (120.12–23).

23 Tac, . Ann. 1.17Google Scholar. This presumably came about through the incompetence or dishonesty of officials, or a lack of funds for the purchase of suitable land if none were available through conquest.

24 See Moatti (n. 8), pp. 63–78.

25 Keppie (n. 4), p. 94 suggests that Hyginus was referring to Augusta Emerita (Mérida) founded in 25 B.C. by Augustus' legate P. Carisius.

26 Met 1.135–6 ‘communemque prius ceu lumina solis et auras/cautus humum longo signavit limite mensor’.