THE HISTORY OF OLD ROME

IV. The Revolution

From: The History of Rome, by Theodor Mommsen
Translated with the sanction of the author by William Purdie Dickson

Chapter II - The Reform Movement and Tiberius Gracchus

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Page 52

That the leading men of the Catonian epoch formed no other judgment, is very clearly shown by their treatment of a similar case that occurred in their time. The territory of Capua and the neighbouring towns, which was annexed as domain in 543, had for the most part practically passed into private possession during the following unsettled times. In the last years of the sixth century, when in various respects, especially through the influence of Cato, the reins of government were drawn tighter, the burgesses resolved to resume the Campanian territory and to let it out for the benefit of the treasury (582).

The possession in this instance rested on an occupation justified not by previous invitation but at the most by the connivance of the authorities, and had continued in no case much beyond a generation; but the holders were not dispossessed except in consideration of a compensatory sum disbursed under the orders of the senate by the urban praetor Publius Lentulus (c. 589).(34)

34. This fact, hitherto only partially known from Cicero (De L. Agr. ii. 31. 82; comp. Liv. xlii. 2, 19), is now more fully established by the fragments of Licinianus, p. 4. The two accounts are to be combined to this effect, that Lentulus ejected the possessors in consideration of a compensatory sum fixed by him, but accomplished nothing with real landowners, as he was not entitled to dispossess them and they would not consent to sell.

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