Dictionary of Greek and Roman antiquities. Ed. by William Smith. Illustrated by numerous engravings on wood.

38 AGRARIAE LEGES. AGRARIAE LEGES.
called public land must be referred to the earliest enjoyment of the public lands; that is, the notion
ages of the Roman state, it appears from Gaius that of occupying and enjoying public land was in the
under the emperors there wa3 still land within the early ages of the republic distinguished from the
limits of the empire, the ownership of which was right of property in it. Nothing was so natural as
not in the individuals who possessed and enjoyed it, to apply this notion, when once fixed, to the posbut in the populus Romanus, or the Caesar. This session of private land as distinct from the ownerpossession and enjoyment are distinguished by him ship; and accordingly the same technical terms
from ownership (dominium). The term possessio were applied to the possession of private land.
frequently occurs in those jurists from whom the Various applications of the word possessio, with
Digest was compiled; but in these writers, as they reference to private land, appear in the Roman
are known to us, it applies only to private land, law, in the bonorum possessio of the praetorian
and the Ager Publicus is hardly, if at all, ever heres and others. But all the uses of the word
noticed by them. Now this term Possessio, as used possessio, as applied to ager privatus, however
in the Digest, means the possession of private land they may differ ill other respects, agreed in this:by one who has no kind of right to it; and this they denoted an actual possession and enjoyment
possessio was protected by the praetor's interdict, of a thing, without the strict Roman (Quiritarian)
even when it was without bona.fides or justa ownership.
causa: but the term Possessio in the Roman 3. The word possessio, which originally signified
historians, Livy for instance, signifies the occupa- the right of the possessor, was in time used to
tion (occupatio) and enjoyment of public land; and signify the object of the right. Thus ager
the true notion of this, the original Possessio, con signified a piece of land, viewed as an object of
tains the whole solution of the question of the Quiritarian ownership, possessio, a piece of land,
Agr:urian Laws. For this solution we are mainly in which a man had only a bonitarian or beneficial
indebted to Niebuhr and Savigny. interest, as, for instance, Italic land not transferred
This latter kind of Possessio, that which has by mancipatio, or land which from its nature could
private land for its object, is demonstrated by not be the subject of Quiritarian ownership, as
Savigny (the term here used can hardly be said provincial lands and the old ager publicus. Posto be too strong) to have arisen from the first sessio accordingly implies usess; ager implies prokind of possessio: aled thus it might readily be prietas or owner-;hip. This explanation of the
supposed that the Roman doctrine of possessio, as terms ager and possessio is from a jurist of the
applied to the occupation of private land, would imperial times, quoted by Savigny (Javolenus,
throw some light on the nature of that original Dig. 50. tit. 16. s. 115); but its value for the
possessio out of -which it grew. In the imperial purpose of the present inquiry is not on that acperiod, public land -had almost ceased to exist in count the less. The ager publicus, and all the old
the Italian peninsula, but the subject of possession notions attached to it, as already observed, hardly
in private lands had become a well understood occur in the extant Roman jurists; but the name
branch of Roman law. The remarks in the three possessio, as applied to private land, and the legal
following paragraphs are from Savigny's valuable notions attached to it, are of frequent occurrence.
work, Das Recht des Besitzes (5th ed. p. 172):- The form of the interdict, - uti possidetis, - as it
1. There were two kinds of land in the Roman appears in the Digest, is this: — Uti eas aedes...posstate, ager publicus and ayer privatus: in the sidetis...vim fieri veto. But the original form of
latter alone private property existed. But con- the interdict was: Uti nunc possidetis eumfundoun,
formably to the old constitution, the greater part &c. (Festus in Possessio); the word fundus, for
of the ager publicus Was occupied and enjoyed by which aedes was afterwards substituted, appears to
private persons, and apparently by the patricians indicate an original connection between the interonly, or at least by them chiefly till the enact- diet and the ager publicus.
ment of the Licinian Rogations; yet the state We know nothing of the origin of the Roman
could Iesume the land at pleasure. Now we find public land, except that it was acquired by conno mention of any legal form for the protection of quest, and when so acquired it belonged to the
the occupier, or Possessor as he was called, of such state, that is, to the populus, as the name publicus
public land against any other individual, though (populicus) imports; and the original populus was
it cannot be doubted that such a form actually the patricians only. We may suppose that in the
existed. But if we assume that the interdict early periods of the Roman state, the conquered
which protected the possession of an individual in lands being the property of the populus, might be
private land, was the form which protected the enjoyed by the members of that body, in any way
possessor of the public land, two problems are that the body might determine. But it is not quite
solved at the same time, — an historical origin is clear how these conquered lands were originally ocdiscovered for possession in private land, and a cupied. The following passage from Appian (Civil
legal form for the protection of possession in public Yiers, i. 7) appears to give a probable account of
land. the matter, and one which is not inconsistent with
An hypothesis, which so clearly connects into such facts as are otherwise known:_-" The Roone consistent whole, facts otherwise incapable of mans," he says, " when they conquered any part
such connection, must be considered rather as of Italy, seized a portion of the lands, and either
evolving a.latent fact, by placing other known built cities in them, or sent Roman colonists to
facts in their true relative position, than as in- settle in the cities which already existed. Such
volving asn independent assumption. But there cities they designed to be garrison places. As to
is historical evidence in support of the hypo- the land thus acquired from time to time, they
thesis. either divided the cultivated part among the
2. The words possessio, possessor, and possidere colonists, or sold it, or let it to farm. As to the
are the technical terms used by writers of very land which had fallen out of cultivation in consedifferent ages, to express the occupation and the quence of war, and which, indeed, was the larger