Ciceros Beitrag zur politischen Debatte über ager Campanus
Cicero’s Contribution to the Political Debate about ager Campanus

Summary/Abstract: The author of the study notes the importance of ager Campanus in political life at the end of the Roman Republic and reconsiders Cicero’s importance in the discussion around it. At the end of the year 64 BC tribune Publius Servius Rullus presented a substantial agrarian proposal, and Cicero successfully responded to it, as the proposal was rejected due to his rhetoric and political influence. Cicero insisted that it was not usual to successfully oppose an agrarian proposal directly in front of the people, and the less so in the case of ager Campanus, because it had not been officially touched by any political group in Roman politics for a long time. Cicero thus formed a new discussion and determined its key points, but it was not entirely ex nihilo creation, because the discussion about land reforms had been going on for decades and had a rich tradition. The study notes, therefore, that Cicero followed up on the usual arguments in the political debate on agrarian reforms and analyzes how he changed them, applied them and brought them into the Campanian discussion. Cicero’s contribution to this discussion is all the more significant, because his arguments were followed in the later period. It was probably due to the success of his rhetoric that the proposal to divide the ager Campanus did not appear in the next two agrarian proposals and was approved only by Caesar second agrarian law. However, Caesar had to deal with the arguments that Cicero introduced into the discussion as well. Therefore, Cicero’s contribution to the topic cannot be overestimated.

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