Later tradition held that as far back as the 5th century BC, the patrician and plebeian classes disputed the rights of the rich to exploit the land, and in 367 BC two Plebeian Tribunes, Gaius Licinius Solo and Lucius Sextius Sextinus Lateranus promulgated a law which limited the amount of the ager publicus to be held by any individual to 500 iugera, roughly 325 acres (1.32 km2).
Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus attempted to address some of these violations in 133 BC, by reimposing the limit of 500 iugera and distributing excess land to poor citizens.
In 111 BC, a new law was passed which allowed individual smallholders to assume ownership of their part of the ager publicus.
[1] In the Social War (91–87 BC) of Sulla the Ager Publicus received a vast increase by proscriptions and confiscations.
By the Imperial period, much of the ager publicus in Italy had been distributed to the veterans of generals such as Lucius Cornelius Sulla, Gaius Julius Caesar and Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus, so that all that remained were the properties of individual cities and common pasture lands.