Ancient & modern
THE Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, obviously thrilled by Robert Mugabe's policy of nationalising productive white-held farms by burning and wrecking them before handing them over to incompetent squatters — so Old Labour! — has given him £36 million to carry on the good work. Tiberius Gracchus' solution was less thrilling.
As Rome conquered its neighbours one by one across Italy, it annexed their territory as ager publicus — 'stateowned land'. Here the Romans built new cities, or assigned, sold or rented the land to individuals who applied to work it (a grant of land was a muchprized reward for military service). The purpose was to encourage honest peasant farmers, who had always formed the backbone of Rome's all-conquering citizen army. But — and this is crucial — unworked land, or a farm which was unworked because its owners were serving in the army, could be taken over by anyone who wanted to, in return for a rent based on produce.
The problem was that, by the 2nd century BC, aristocrats had come to monopolise the ownership of this category of land, and they proceeded to farm it not with free men, who might be called up for military service, but with slaves. It is true that a law had been passed laying down that no one could own more than 300 acres of such land, but it was disregarded. The wealth derived from empire — booty, commerce, contracts for supplying the army and so on — was in the hands of the upper classes, and they saw land as the best bet for a decent return. Such vast expropriations also made nearby small peasant farms unviable, and these, too, were taken over.
Tiberius Gracchus felt it was quite wrong that soldiers and peasants should be dispossessed of land in this way. So in 133 BC he proposed that the existing holders of the land be allowed to retain 300 acres of it, plus 150 acres for each son; and that a distribution board be set up to survey the ager publicus, decide all disputes of title, and allot the rest of it in 14-acre holdings to the poor. He also made proposals to provide start-up funds to stock the new farms. Despite heavy senatorial opposition, the bill was passed and the board went to work — though the upper classes later got their revenge, and Gracchus was murdered in riots.
Such, perhaps, is the fate Mugabe fears from the squatting classes if he does not keep up his imaginative policy. Tragic! Our money is obviously well spent on keeping this great visionary alive. Peter Jones
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