THEME: Food in crisis THEME FARMERS AND LAND IN THE LATE REPUBLIC
For most people, late-second century BC Roman Republican history will bring to mind the Gracchi brothers and their attempt to put an end to the agricultural crisis. Traditionally, the occupation of public land (ager publicus) by wealthy landowners brought about the deracination of small farmers, whose plots of land were occupied by slave-staffed agricultural estates, commonly known as latifundia (see Appian The Civil Wars 1.7–8 and Plutarch Tiberius Gracchus 8). Recent work on landownership patterns, migration, and demography, however, has largely dismantled this view, integrating it with novel findings.
Public land and where to find it
The first brick to pull from the wall is that of large swathes of public land available throughout Italy. The actual picture is always more nuanced than the sources would concede. Land that could be freely occupied seems to be mostly located in the peripheral regions of the peninsula, such as southern Italy, Picenum, and Cisalpine Gaul. The situation in the area around Rome and, more broadly, central Italy is one of scarce availability of . In Latium, for instance, most public land had been distributed to Roman citizens as private property in viritane distribution or colonies in the aftermath of the Latin War. Similarly, in Etruria, the foundation of colonies at the beginning of the second century BC was shortly followed taken from the territory of Capua as a result of the town's disloyalty against Rome. Even then, this tract of land, known as the , was either disposed in relation to another wave of colonization, or rapidly sold or leased out. What was left of it was located in the region's mountainous areas.
