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RULLUS, PUBLIUS SERVILIUS

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Originally appearing in Volume V23, Page 825 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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RULLUS, PUBLIUS SERVILIUS , See also:Roman See also:tribune of the See also:people in 64 B.c., well known as the proposer of one of the most far-reaching agrarian See also:laws brought forward in Roman See also:history. This See also:law provided for the See also:establishment of a See also:commission of ten, empowered to See also:purchase See also:land in See also:Italy for See also:distribution amongst the poorer citizens and for the See also:foundation of colonies. Its professed See also:object was to clear See also:Rome of the large number of pauper citizens, who formed a See also:standing menace to See also:peace. The members of the commission were to be invested with See also:powers so extensive that See also:Cicero spoke of them as ten " See also:kings." They were to be elected for five years by seventeen of the tribes chosen by See also:lot from the See also:thirty-five; the imperium was to be conferred upon them by the lex curiata, together with judicial powers and the See also:rank of See also:praetor. Only those were eligible who personally gave in their names, a clause obviously intended to exclude See also:Pompey, who was at the See also:time absent in the See also:East. In fact, the commission as a whole was intended to See also:act as a counterpoise to his See also:power. The only land available for the purposes of the See also:bill was the Ager Campanus and the Ager Stellati, where 5000 citizens were to be settled at once, but as these were utterly insufficient, other lands were to be acquired by purchase. The necessary See also:money was to be found by the See also:sale of all the public See also:property in Italy which had been ordered to be sold by resolutions of the See also:senate (in 8r, or subsequently), but which the fear of unpopularity had deterred the consuls from selling; by the sale of lands, &c., in the provinces which had become public property since 88, and even of the domains acquired during the Mithradatic See also:war. A See also:special See also:article, the object of which was to pacify those who had received grants of land from See also:Sulla, declared such possessions to be private property, for which See also:compensation was to be paid in See also:case of surrender. The revenues of the provinces which were now being organized by Pompey, and the See also:booty and money taken or received by generals during war were also to be applied to this purpose. The places to which colonies were to be sent were not specified (with the exception mentioned above), so that the commissioners would be able to sell wherever they pleased, and it was See also:left to them to decide what was public or private property. Cicero delivered four speeches against the bill, of which three are still extant, although the first is mutilated at the beginning.

The second is the most important for the history of the bill; nothing is known of the See also:

fourth. Very little See also:enthusiasm was shown in the See also:matter by the people, who preferred the distribution of doles in the See also:city to the prospect of distant allotments. One of the tribunes even threatened to put his See also:veto on the bill, which was withdrawn before the voting took See also:place. The whole affair was obviously a See also:political move, probably engineered by See also:Caesar, his object being to make the democratic leaders the rulers of the See also:state. Although Caesar could hardly have expected the bill to pass, the aristocratic party would be saddled with the odium of rejecting a popular measure, and the people themselves would be more ready to welcome a proposal by Caesar himself, an expectation fulfilled by the passing of the lex Julia in 59, whereby Caesar at least partly succeeded where Rullus had failed. See the orations of Cicero De See also:lee cgraria, with the introduction in G. See also:Long's edition, and the same author's Decline of the Roman See also:Republic, p. 241; See also:Mommsen, Hist. of Rome, bk. v. ch. 5; See also:art.

End of Article: RULLUS, PUBLIUS SERVILIUS

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