The Provisions respecting the Public Lands. — The provisions respecting the public domain and private debts were the price paid for the support of the common people. They were neither adequate nor thorough. A fair distribution of the public lands already occupied, the abolition of the system of occupation, and a permanent provision for an impartial and speedy distribution of future acquisitions of territory were plainly necessary, and would have been just and thorough measures. But the Licinian law fixed a very liberal maximum both in regard to the occupation of land and the use of the public pastures, and gave to the wealthy plebeian and patrician aristocracy a disproportionate prior share of the profits to be derived from the public domain. When the rich should have received their portions, it was probably the intention that the remaining lands should be distributed among individual plebeians. Before the passage of the law the rich had, however, had a number of years in which to dispose of the land they held in excess of the maximum of three hundred and eleven acres. Moreover, the law did not in any way improve the existing unsatisfactory provisions for the collection of the public revenues from the domain.
Nevertheless, during the period after 367 the aediles were comparatively strict in enforcing the provision respecting a maximum, and frequently imposed heavy fines on the owners of large herds and the greedy occupants of public lands, of whom Licinius himself was one. In the course of time the small farmers were substantially benefited by the law, and the agrarian agitations disappeared from Roman politics for more than a century. In consequence of the land policy, every new acquisition of territory was a part of the spoils of war, for which rich and poor competed, and formed such a conspicuous source of profit that it was ever an incitement to war.
