of the
people, was entrusted with the work of resumption and distribution. The
important and difficult task of legally settling what was domain land and
what was private property was afterward added to these functions. Tiberius
himself, his brother Caius, then at Numantia, and his father-in-law,
Claudius, were nominated, according to the usual custom of intrusting
the execution of a law to its author and his chosen adherents.[11] The
distribution was designed to go on continually and to embrace the whole
class that should be in need of aid. The new features of this agraria lex
of Sempronius, as compared with the Licinio-Sextian, were, first, the
clause in favor of the hereditary possessors; secondly, the payment of
quit-rent, and inalienable tenure proposed for the new allotments; thirdly,
and especially, the permanent executive, the want of which, under the
older law, had been the chief reason why it had remained without lasting
practical application.[12]

The dissatisfaction of the supporters of the law concurred with the
resistance of its opponents in preventing its execution or at least greatly
embarrassing the collegium. The senate refused to grant the customary
outfit to which the commissioners[13] were entitled. They proceeded without
it. Then the landowners denied that they occupied any of the public
land, or else asked such enormous indemnities as to render the recovery
impossible without violence. This roused opposition. The _ager publicus_
had never been surveyed, private boundaries had in many cases been
obliterated, and, except where natural boundaries marked the limit of the
domain land, it was impossible to ascertain what was _ager publicus_ and
what _ager privatus_. To avoid this difficulty the commission adopted the
just but hazardous expediency of throwing the burden of proof upon the
occupier. He was summoned before their tribunal and, unless he could
establish his boundaries or prove that the land in question had never
been a part of the domain land, it was declared _ager publicus_ and
confiscated.[14]

On the other hand the newly made proprietors were contending with one
another, if not with the commissioners. The Italians were, in some cases,
despoiled instead of relieved by the law. The complaints of those turned
out of their estates to make room for the clamorous swarms from the city,
drowned the thanks of such as obtained a portion of the lands. Not even
with the wealth of Attalus had Tiberius