Mommsen (vol. III, p. 128) says:
"The work of resuming and distributing the occupied domain land was
prosecuted with zeal and energy; and, in fact, proofs to that effect are
not wanting. As early as 622(i.e. from the Foundation of Rome, =132 B.C.)
the consul of that year, Publius Popillius, the same who presided over the
prosecution of the adherents of Tiberius Gracchus, recorded on a public
monument that he was 'the first who had turned the shepherd out of the
domains and installed farmers in their stead;' and tradition otherwise
affirms that the distribution extended over all Italy, and that in the
formerly existing communities the number of farmers was everywhere
augmented--for it was the design of the Sempronian agrarian law to elevate
the former class, not by the founding of new communities, but by the
strengthening of those already in existence.
"The extent and the comprehensive effect of these distributions are
attested by the numerous arrangements in the Roman art of land-measuring
referable to the Gracchan assignations of land; for instance, the due
placing of boundary stones, so as to obviate future mistakes, appears to
have been first suggested by the Gracchan courts for defining boundaries
and by the distribution of land.
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