Our analysis has shown that in the 2nd century, under the Ptolemies, the agricultural economy of the country had declined as a result of the systematic intensification of their policy of etatism, the ground thus being prepared for the conservative agricultural regime at the expense of the small and medium peasantry. If Lucullus on his visit to Cyrene in the year 88/6 cited Plato[1116] (pp. 63-4) on the flourishing state of the city’s inhabitants, he did not do so in order to draw attention to their prosperity at the time of his visit, but on the contrary — the philosopher’s words were his preface to a statement in the opposite sense: “No man is harder to govern than the successful one, and none is easier to govern than he who has been brought low by fortune” — “And this it was (Plutarch concludes) that made the Cyreneans submit without resistance to the legislation of Lucullus.” Thus, Lucullus’ words confirm the depressed state of the city in this period.
A second economic factor influencing the life of the country was constituted by the royal lands, which had passed into the hands of the Roman Senate on the death of Ptolemy Apion in 96 B.C. It has already been stated (pp. 110-11) that these lands were extensive and evidence can be adduced for their existence near Cyrene, on the Jebel to east and west of the city, near Ptolemais, and on the southern slopes of the plateau. Further areas have been conjectured between Teucheira and Bengazi. The extent of these tracts is shown by the size of the standard unit mentioned by Hyginus in his account of their division.
What in effect were the agri Apionis which thus became ager pttblicus? Tenney Frank, in a lengthy enquiry,[1117] endeavours to prove that the term ager publicus did not refer in the 1st century B.C. to all the lands of the provinces conquered by Rome, but meant the personal estates of the hellenistic monarchs in Asia and Sicily, and other tracts confiscated from rebellious cities or enemies (Sicily; the lands of Corinth and Carthage). In Asia, for example, they did not on this view include the βασιλικὴ γῆ, i.e. the crown lands, but only the personal domains of the Attalids. If Frank was right, can his doctrine be extended to Cyrenaica? We have seen that Euergetes II regarded the χώρα as entirely his, but this was almost certainly a purely political conception, and did not carry the meaning of personal ownership. But Cyrene differed from Asia and Sicily in one important aspect, namely, that here a transitional period intervened between the Roman assumption of control of the agri Apionis and the inclusion of the whole country in a province. In Asia and Sicily, by contrast, the separation of royal domains from crown land was possible because the Roman authority was imposed on these countries in their entirety by a single act. Had the Cyrenean lands outside the city-territories and the personal property of the kings not been annexed to one of these two categories when autonomy was granted to the towns, they would have remained “in the air”, without administrative control. This reality therefore obliges an interpretation not consistent with Frank’s view on other provinces. The arrival of silphium in the Roman treasury in 93 B.C.[1118] agrees with our own interpretation.
One document may throw some light on the problem, namely, an inscription from the ancient village of Negharnes, east of Cyrene.[1119] This settlement is situated on the northern edge of lands divided up by the Roman method of limitatio, which shows that they belonged to the estates of Ptolemy Apion and subsequently to the Roman ager publicus. The present buildings of Negharnes are mostly Byzantine, but there are hellenistic mausolea to west of the village, which stands near the northern scarp of the plateau, overlooking the Lusaita, where its inhabitants doubtless grew wheat on the fertile terra rossa. Negharnes was further directly linked by road with Apollonia, through which port its grain could be exported. The inscription concerned is dated in the ist century before the present era; its surviving portion commemorates an act of the village council, composed of fifty-three πολιάνομοι, releasing one of its inhabitants from the village liturgies and labour service; the man so exempted is appointed honorary priest of Dionysus and receives permission to make his own estimate of his corn-contribution when registering with the relevant official (the σιτώνης). As the inscription was set up in the ist century B.C., and reflects characteristically hellenistic administrative arrangements, probably we may perceive in them Ptolemaic conditions, even if the inscription was dedicated after Rome had taken over these lands in 96 B.C. The purchaser of the grain is a government official, and the grain concerned is evidently the ἀγοραστός σῖτος of Ptolemaic Egypt,[1120] the frumentum emptum mentioned by Cicero in relation to Sicily.[1121] The document permits its subject to sell more when the prices are good, and less when they are low. Clearly then, the community was permitted to release its members from certain duties because it bore a collective responsibility to supply an annual quota of corn to be purchased by the government. It is known that in Egypt the ἀγοραστός σῖτος was imposed on cleruchs and cultivators of γῆ ἐν ἀφέσει.[1122] i.e. land awarded by the king, and theoretically reverting to him. Negharnes therefore was inhabited by this category of cultivator (cleruchs or katoikoi), or by peasants working γῆ ἐν ἀφέσει, and not by λαοὶ βασιλικὴ, or peasants cultivating royal lands (βασιλικὴ γῆ) under contract and royal supervision.[1123] The presence of katoikoi at Negharnes would indeed agree with the internal autonomy enjoyed by its inhabitants, expressed by their council, and by their freedom to impose liturgies and labour-service. If this supposition is correct, we must conclude that in the 1st century B.C., before Cyrene became part of a Roman province, Negharnes, inhabited by comfortable holders of land granted to them by the king, but not by inhabitants of his personal estates — nevertheless became part of the ager publicus. And if the Negharnes evidence is not regarded as convincing, because the land here was not βασιλικὴ γῆ but γῆ ἐν ἀφέσει, it will be recalled that in Egypt, whose influence on Cyrenaica was generally considerable at this period, crown domain was assimilated to the ager publicus (δημόσια γῆ) under Augustus.[1124]
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1120