Editing Publius Servilius Rullus (section)

==Interpretations==
There are various interpretations of the political motivations of this agrarian bill among various historians. 1) The most common one is that Crassus and Caesar sought to seize power through a coup d’ état against Pompey and/or the senate or that they were after command in Egypt to enable them to fight Pompey.<ref>Mommsen, Romische Geschicte 3, 1889, pp. 181-2</ref><ref>Marsh, F.B., Founding of the Roman Empire, 1927, p. 77</ref><ref>Holmes, Roman Republic I, 1932, p.243</ref><ref>Edward Mayer Caesars Monachie ou du Principat du Pompeius, 1933, p. 14</ref><ref>Vogst, Cicero und Salust, 1938, p.21</ref><ref>M. Gelzer, Caesar, 1960, p. 37</ref> 2) Crassus wanted to control the allotment of land so that he would have a strong bargaining position when Pompey came back from the war and sought land for his veterans (soldiers were entitled to a grant of a plot of land on their discharge);<ref>Scullard, H. H., From the Gracchi to Nero, 1963, p. 111</ref><ref>Cary, M., in CAH 9, p. 456</ref> 3) The bill was a bribery scheme to provide profits for the merchants and a new tax source for the [[publican]]i (these were private tax collectors, the republican state tendered this collection to private tax collectors who used their position to line their pockets and for extortion);<ref>Afzelius, A., Ackerverteilungsgesets des P. Servilius Rullus, Classica et Medievalia 3, 1940, pp. 222-3</ref> 4) The bill was never meant to be passed and served to show up Cicero in his true colours, as an optimate-lover, rather than consul in favour of the people and to heighten the conflict between the plebeians and the senate.<ref>Afzelius, A., Ackerverteilungsgesets des P. Servilius Rullus, Classica et Medievalia 3, 1940, p. 230</ref> 5) The purpose of the bill  was genuinely to give land to the landless poor. According to this view, this was intended to rid Rome of these people who were seen as idle and dangerous and improve the security of the city.<ref>Hardy, E.G., Some Problems in Roman History, 1924, p. 68</ref> Conspiracy theories are unlikely and based on the rhetoric of Cicero and on the remarks of Plutarch and Suetonius. These two later writers had pro-aristocracy views and always portrayed the plebeian tribunes in a negative light. As for Cicero's speeches, their rhetoric appears to be designed to undermine support for the bill.

Cicero tried to give a conspiratorial hue to the bill. He alleged that the architects of the bill were against both Pompey and himself. He said that they hoped to use the powers of the commissioners to allot land to discharged soldiers to take away from Pompey his right to give his veterans land and, through this, the support of his veterans. He added that he was concerned that they would do so during his term as consul to undermine him because they despised him.<ref>Cicero, On The Agrarian Laws. 2.54-55</ref> This is what interpretations 2 and 4 rest on. Cicero repeatedly made his claim about an anti-Pompeian agenda. He said that the commissions would "in the first place take care that Gnaeus [Pompey] should be removed from all power of protecting your [the people's] liberty, from all power to promote, from all commission to watch over, and from all means of protecting your interests [,]" and that they thought it "expedient to oppose Gnaeus [Pompey] as your defence against all defects and wickednesses in the law."<ref>Cicero, On The Agrarian Laws. 2.25</ref> He called the commissioners "Ten general against Pompey."<ref>Cicero, On The Agrarian Laws. 2.54-55</ref> Cicero was also at pain to present himself as a consul who stood for the people and not for the aristocrats or the optimantes: "I have been made consul, not by the zeal of the powerful citizens, nor by the preponderating influence of a few men, but by the deliberate judgment of the Roman people, and that, too, in such a way as to be preferred to men of the very highest rank, to avoid, both in this magistracy and throughout my whole life, devoting myself to the interests of the people."<ref>Cicero, On The Agrarian Laws. 2.7</ref> He presented himself as a man who stood in opposition against men who pretended to stand in the interests of the people but were in fact a danger to the people (this was a reference to the populares): "For there is a great error abroad, by reason of the treacherous pretences made by some people, who, though they oppose and hinder not only the advantage but even the safety of the people, still endeavour by their speeches to make men believe them zealous for the interests of the people."<ref>Cicero, On The Agrarian Laws. 2.7</ref>

To further bolster his speeches, Cicero claimed that the Publius Rullus would sell Alexandria and Egypt. In 65 BC there was a proposal to annex Egypt. This was made by the plebeian tribunes. According to Suetonius Julius Caesar, who wanted to get the command in Egypt, put them up to it.<ref>Suetonius, The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, Julius Caesar, 11.1</ref> According to Plutarch, instead, Crassus promoted this.<ref>Plutarch, Parallel Lives, The life of Crassus, 13.1-2</ref> Both Plutarch and Suetonius wrote over 160 years after these events. The proposal was made on the basis of a claim that [[Ptolemy X Alexander I|Ptolemy Alexander I]] of Egypt bequeathed his kingdom to Rome.  Cicero said: "I know that there is a resolution of the senate extant to the effect that it accepted the inheritance … [Publius Servilius Rullus] will also, in accordance with his own law, sell Alexandria, and sell Egypt. He will be found to be the judge, the arbiter, the master, of a most wealthy city, and of a most beautiful country; yes, he will be found to be the king of a most opulent kingdom. Will he abstain from taking all this? from desiring all this? He will decide that Alexandria belongs to the king; he will by his sentence deprive the Roman people of it."<ref>Cicero, On The Agrarian Law, 2.43</ref> In the last part of the sentence Cicero implied that, should Egypt be annexed, the plebeian tribune and the other decemviri would use the sale of Alexandria and Egypt for their own profit.

Sumner points out that the proposal to annex Egypt by some plebeian tribunes in 65 BC had been rejected and that the commission would have to have the annexation approved by the senate or the assembly of the people. The bill did leave the possibility of annexation open by setting the cut off for the selling of domains outside Italy which had been seen as public property form 88 BC onward. This was the year in which Ptolemy Alexander I was deposed. However, not only the annexation would have to be approved by either of the mentioned bodies, so would the declaration of the royal property in Egypt as Roman public property. Thus, as Sumner notes, the bill did not allow the land commission 'to go and grab Egypt'. One this could add to this that the law did not allow the land commission to make a declaration on public land. The annexation of Egypt was a very unlikely scenario. Even in such a case, Sumner points out that the most likely Roman commander who would have benefited would have been Pompey, who was already in the east and was ending the war there. He would have been the best positioned man to handle the annexation of Egypt. Moreover, the 65 BC proposal to annex Egypt occurred during the period of ascendancy of Pompey and followed the Gabinian Law (67 BC), which gave Pompey extraordinary proconsular powers in any province within 50 miles of the Mediterranean Sea to deal with the problem of piracy, and the 66 BC [[Manilian Law]] (which Cicero had supported), which gave Pompey the mandate to replace the previous Romans commander in the Third Mithridatic War and gave him supreme command in the last phase of this war. Sumner also notes that the opponents to these two laws were optimates and that Julius Caesar had supported them.<ref>G. V. Sumner, Cicero, Pompeius, and Rullus, Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association, Vol. 97 (1966), p. 576-79</ref> The planned coup d' état interpretation of the political motivations behind the bill is based on the idea that Caesar was after the command of Egypt after its annexation.