{grant_seleucid} Ager Divisvs et Assignatvs\n(Grant of Land)
{grant_seleucid_desc}
"Oh Patres Conscripti, we have given away huge tracts of land--State owned land, at that--for free to the penniless masses of the Head Count. Truely this is a glorious day for Rome."\n\ Historically, the Roman Senate was less than eager to dole out land owned by the SPQR, that is, the Senate and People of Rome. In the early days of the Res Publica, large amounts of land were confiscated by the State upon the defeat of rival Latin and Italian city-states, being known as Ager Occupatorius. Sometimes this land was restored to its people once they had submitted to Rome, being known thereafter as Redditus. Ager Publicus, or Public Land, as it was known, was anything but in our modern sense, being entirely owned and run by the State, as opposed to Ager Privatus. \n\The phrase "mittere in agros", in the agrarian law, refers to assigning this land to individuals for tenantship. Ager Divisus et Assignatus was this public land granted to individuals. The verb divido or some form of it, is used by Livy (iv. 51, v. 30) to express the distribution of the land. The word assigno indicates the fixing of the signa or boundaries. Ager Quaestorius was land sold to individuals by the Quaestors, in square patches, each side of which would measure ten linear actus, or about fifty jugera square.\n\Ager Limitatus was public land assigned out for colonaie, the limits being drawn up in reference to the heavens, a method of dividing land based on an older Etruscan method, for the Etruscans divided the earth into parts, following the course of the sun by drawing a line from east to west, and another from south to north.
{grant_seleucid_desc_short}
"Senatores, the doleing out of Ager Publicus in this province has been completed, and a steady amount new small holders are flocking to the region, to establish farmsteads and vicae."
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