Colleen McCullough - 4. Caesar's Women

On the second day of January Caesar presented his land bill to the House for its consideration, and the House shuddered at the sight of almost thirty large book buckets distributed around the senior consul's feet. What had been the normal length of a bill was now seen to be minute by comparison; the lex Iulia agraria ran to well over a hundred chapters. As the chamber of the Curia Hostilia was not an acoustically satisfactory place, the senior consul pitched his voice high and proceeded to give the Senate of Rome an admirably concise and yet comprehensive dissection of this massive document bearing his name, and his name alone. A pity Bibulus was uncooperative; otherwise it might have been a lex Iulia Calpurnia agraria. "My scribes have prepared three hundred copies of the bill; time prohibited more," he said. "However, there are enough for a copy between every two senators, plus fifty for the People. I will set up a booth outside the Basilica Aemilia with a legal secretary and an assistant in attendance so that those members of the People who wish to peruse it or query it may do so. Attached to each copy is a summary equipped with useful references to pertinent clauses or chapters in case some readers or enquirers are more interested in some provisions than in others." "You've got to be joking!" sneered Bibulus. "No one will bother reading anything half that long!" "I sincerely hope everyone reads it," said Caesar, lifting his brows. "I want criticism, I want helpful suggestions, I want to know what's wrong with it." He looked stern. "Brevity may be the core of wit, but brevity in laws requiring length means bad laws. Every contingency must be examined, explored, explained. Watertight legislation is long legislation. You will see few nice short bills from me, Conscript Fathers. But every bill I intend to present to you will have been personally drafted according to a formula designed to cover every foreseeable possibility." He paused to allow comment, but nobody volunteered. "Italia is Rome, make no mistake about that. The public lands of Italia's cities, towns, municipalities and shires belong to Rome, and thanks to wars and migrations there are many districts up and down this peninsula that have become as underused and underpopulated as any part of modern Greece. Whereas Rome the city has become overpopulated. The grain dole is a burden larger than the Treasury ought to be expected to bear, and in saying this I am not criticizing the law of Marcus Porcius Cato. In my opinion his was an excellent measure. Without it, we would have seen riots and general unrest. But the fact remains that instead of funding an ever increasing grain dole, we ought to be relieving overpopulation within the city of Rome by offering Rome's poor more than a chance to join the army. "We also have some fifty thousand veteran soldiers wandering up and down the country including inside this city! without the wherewithal to settle down in middle age and become peaceful, productive citizens able to procreate legitimately and provide Rome with the soldiers of the future, rather than with fatherless brats hanging on the skirts of indigent women. If our conquests have taught us nothing else, they have surely taught us that it is Romans who fight best, Romans who give generals their victories, Romans who can look with equanimity upon the prospect of a siege ten years long, Romans who can pick up after their losses and begin to fight all over again. What I propose is a law which will distribute every iugerum of public land in this peninsula, save for the two hundred square miles of the Ager Campanus and the fifty square miles of public land attached to the city of Capua, our main training ground for the legions. It therefore includes the public lands attached to places like Volaterrae and Arretium. When I go to fix my boundary stones along Italia's traveling stock routes, I want to know that they comprise the bulk of public land left in the peninsula outside of Campania. Why not the Campanian lands too? Simply because they have been under lease for a very long time, and it would be highly repugnant to those who lease them to have to do without them. That of course includes the maltreated knight Publius Servilius, who I hope by now has replanted his vines and applied as much manure as those delicate plants can tolerate." Not even that provoked a remark! Because Bibulus's curule chair was actually a little behind his own, Caesar couldn't see his face, but found it interesting that he remained silent. Silent too was Cato, back to wearing no tunic beneath his toga since his Ape, Favonius, had entered the House to imitate him. An urban quaestor, the Ape was able to attend every sitting of the Senate. "Without dispossessing any person at present occupying our ager publicus under the terms of an earlier lex agraria, I have estimated that the available public lands will provide allotments of ten iugera each to perhaps thirty thousand eligible citizens. Which leaves us with the task of finding sufficient land at present privately owned for another fifty thousand beneficiaries. I am counting on accommodating fifty thousand veteran soldiers plus thirty thousand of Rome's urban poor. Not including however many veterans are inside the city of Rome, thirty thousand urban poor removed to productive allotments in rural areas will provide relief for the Treasury of seven hundred and twenty talents per year of grain dole moneys. Add the twenty thousand odd veterans in the city, and the relief approximates the additional burden Marcus Porcius Cato's law put on public funds. "But even accounting for the purchase of so much privately owned land, the Treasury can supply the finance necessary because of enormously increased revenues from the eastern provinces even if, for example, the tax farming contracts were to be reduced by, let us say, a third. I do not expect the twenty thousand talents of outright profit Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus added to the Treasury to stretch to buying land because of Quintus Metellus Nepos's relaxation of duties and tariffs, a munificent gesture which has deprived Rome of revenue she actually needs badly." Did that get a response? No, it didn't. Nepos himself was still governing Further Spain, though Celer sat among the consulars. Time he took himself to govern his province, Further Gaul. "When you examine my lex agraria, you will find that it is not arrogant. No pressure of any kind can be exerted upon present owners of land to sell to the State, nor is there a built in reduction in land prices. Land bought by the State must be paid for at the value put upon it by our esteemed censors Gaius Scribonius Curio and Gaius Cassius Longinus. Existing deeds of ownership will be accepted as completely legal, with no recourse at law to challenge them. In other words, if a man has shifted his boundary stones and no one has yet quarreled with his action, then they define the extent of his property at sale. "No recipient of a grant of land will be able to sell it or move off it for twenty years. "And finally, Conscript Fathers, the law proposes that the acquisition and allocation of land reside with a commission of twenty senior knights and senators. If this House gives me a consultum to take to the People, then this House will have the privilege of choosing the twenty knights and senators. If it does not give me a consultum, then the privilege goes to the People. There will also be a committee of five consulars to supervise the work of the commissioners. I, however, have no part in any of it. Neither commission nor committee. There must be no suspicion that Gaius Julius Caesar is out to enrich himself, or become the patron of those the lex Iulia agraria resettles." Caesar sighed, smiled, lifted his hands. "Enough for today, honored members of this House. I give you twelve days to read the bill and prepare for debate, which means that the next session to deal with the lex Iulia agraria will occur sixteen days before the Kalends of February. The House will, however, sit again five days from now, which is the seventh day before the Ides of January." He looked mischievous. As I would not like to think any of you is overburdened, I have arranged for the delivery of two hundred and fifty copies of my law to the houses of the two hundred and fifty most senior members of this body. Please don't forget the more junior senators! Those of you who read swiftly, send your copy on when you've finished. Otherwise, may I suggest the junior men approach their seniors and ask to share?" Whereupon he dismissed the meeting and went off in the company of Crassus; passing Pompey, he acknowledged the Great Man with a grave inclination of the head, nothing more. Cato had more to say as he and Bibulus walked out together than he had during the meeting. "I intend to read every line of every one of those innumerable scrolls looking for the catches," he announced, "and I suggest you do the same, Bibulus, even if you do hate reading law. In fact, we must all read." "He hasn't left much room to criticize the actual law if it's as respectable as he makes out. There won't be any catches." "Are you saying you're in favor of it?" roared Cato. "Of course I'm not!" Bibulus snapped. "What I'm saying is that our blocking it will look spiteful rather than constructive." Cato looked blank. "Do you care?" Not really, but I was hoping for a reworked version of Sulpicius or Rullus something we could pick at. There's no point in making ourselves more odious to the People than necessary." "He's too good for us," said Metellus Scipio gloomily. "No, he isn't!" yelled Bibulus. "He won't win, he won't!"