He proposed an agrarian law aimed at redistributing land for the landless poor in Rome to farm.
To raise funds for this, the decemviri were empowered to sell public land whose sale had been recommended by senatus consulta (written advice by the senate) since 81 BC, but had not been carried out.
The decimviri were also authorised to tax public land outside Italy, to use the Vectigalia from 63 BC [1] and the gold and silver from war booty not paid into the treasury or spent on monuments.
Military commanders gave some of their booty to the state treasury and spent some of it to build temples and public facilities or to erect statues.
He was commanding the Roman troops in the last phase of the Third Mithridatic War (73–63 BC) against Pontus and Armenia (in present-day eastern Turkey).
[4] The speeches of Cicero need to be understood in terms of the frictions between two political factions, the populares (in favour of the people) and the optimates (the good men).
He said Lucius Cornelius Sulla (the commander in the First Mithridatic War, 89–85 BC) had recovered land in Asia.
After winning the Third Mithridatic War Pompey annexed Cilicia Trachea, part of Pontus (both in today's Turkey), and Syria.
Sumner points out that by mos maiorum the adjudication and control of the estates in the acquired territories were to rest with Pompey.
[7] Hence, here Cicero's statements were contentious and part of effort to purport that Crassus and Caesar wanted to use the bill to prepare for a conflict with Pompey (see below).
[8][9][10][11][12][13] 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);[14][15] 3) The bill was a bribery scheme to provide profits for the merchants and a new tax source for the publicani (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);[16] 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
[27] 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.
In 59 BC Julius Caesar managed to pass a law which gave land to 20,000 Roman citizens with more than three children in Campania, in the same area which had been earmarked for redistribution by the bill of Publius Servilius Rullus.