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(Pronunciation 'gra-key')
Tiberius
and Gaius Gracchus, two Roman statesmen and social reformers, were the
sons of the consul Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus and Cornelia, the
daughter of Scipio Africanus.
The
brief emergence and demise of each of the brothers Gracchus (Tiberius
in 133 BC, Gaius in 120 BC) onto the scene of Roman politics would send
shock waves through the entire structure of the Roman state of such
magnitude that their effects would be felt for generations.
One
believes that around the time of the Gracchus brothers Rome began to
think in terms of political right and left, dividing the two factions
into optimates and populares. However questionable their political
tactics at times were, the brothers showed up a fundamental flaw in the
way Roman society was conducting itself. Running an army with fewer and
fewer conscripts to oversee an expanding empire was not sustainable.
And the creation of ever greater numbers of urban poor was a threat to
the stability of Rome itself.
But
however reasonable some of their arguments might have been, the two
brothers - with their contempt for the senate, their flagrant populism
and their political brinkmanship - heralded a change in the nature of
Roman politics. The stakes were getting ever higher, things were
becoming more brutal. Rome's well being seemed more and more to be a
secondary factor in the great contest of egos and boundless ambition.
Also the passions whipped up during the brief time in office is largely
seen as having led to the following period of social strife and civil
war.
Family background
In
assessing the careers of the Gracchi brothers it is necessary to bear
in mind his background. The Sempronii Gracchi were a plebeian family.
They had gained prominence only a century earlier but had clearly
become completely integrated into the ruling oligarchy. A Ti. Gracchus
became consul in 238 and oversaw the unjust seizure of Sardinia from
the Carthaginians that year. His son of the same name was consul twice
in the Hannibalic war (215 and 213), being killed in battle in 212.
This man's nephew is the father of Ti. Gracchus the tribune of 133 and
C. Gracchus the tribune of 123-22.
The
elder Tiberius was a very successful politician - twice consul,
celebrated a triumph, and was censor. Praetor in 180, he successfully
subjugated Hither Spain (180-79), which had been a source of trouble
for years (he was not only militarily successful but managed to
negotiate a peace acceptable to the natives). As a reward he gained the
consulship in 177 and successfully crushed a rebellion in Sardinia. In
169 he was censor, and in 163 secured a second consulship. He was a
Hellenophile and gave a speech in Greek at Rhodes in 169. He put down
the revolt on Sardinia. As consul he waged war on Corsica and, when one
of the new consuls was going to succeed him, conveniently remembered
that he had botched the replacements' election, thereby invalidating
his successor's election and securing for himself the conquest of the
island (taking 10,000 slaves). The son of one of the men thus stripped
of the consulship was to bring about the murder of Ti. Gracchus the
younger in 133.
As
tribune in the 180s Ti. Gracchus the elder had prevented the arrest of
P. Scipio Africanus the conqueror of Hannibal. After Africanus' death
(in 184), Gracchus married his daughter Cornelia (her mother was the
daughter of L. Aemilius Paullus, who died at the terrible battle of
Cannae in 216). Cornelia thus had a doubly patrician heritage, and was
apparently a woman of much prominence. Plutarch tells us that Ptolemy
king of Egypt sought her hand after Gracchus' death.
Ti.
Gracchus the elder and Cornelia had twelve children, of whom only three
survived to adulthood: Tiberius (born in 163), Gaius (born in 154), and
the daughter Sempronia. Sempronia (re-)married to the adoptive grandson
of Africanus (and her own cousin), P. Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus, who
was consul in 147 and destroyed Carthage in 146, and after being
(illegally) elected consul again in 134 destroyed the troublesome
Spanish town of Numantia the next year.
Thus
by both birth and marriage relation, Ti. Gracchus belonged to the
highest senatorial circles. This must always be borne in mind when he
is characterized as a "revolutionary."
The
brothers were brought up with great care by their mother. They belonged
to a distinguished, noble family. Their grandfather had been a consul,
military leader and hero. His mother was one of Rome's most cultured
women. She had had Tiberius and Gaius educated -- an education that
emphasized public duty, the maintenance of godliness and the "divine
spark of reason" in men. This was the Stoicism of Tiberius' boyhood
tutor, a Greek named Blossius, who remained with Tiberius in adulthood
as an advisor.
M. Fulvius Flaccus
M.
Fulvius Flaccus belonged to one of the great noble families and was a
supporter of Tiberius Gracchus. He was elected to the land commission
in 131 or 130. In 125 he was elected consul and attempted to solve the
allies' objections to the operations of the land commission by offering
them Roman citizenship in return for acquiescence in the commission's
repossession of land owned by the allies. This effort fell through when
Flaccus had to go to southern France (Transalpine Gaul) to deal with
threats by Celtic tribesmen against the allied city of
Masilia(=Marseilles). That the desire for citizenship was strong among
the allies is shown by the fact that the Latin colony of Fregellae
actually revolted as a result of the failure of the proposal and was
destroyed by the praetor L. Opimius, whom we will meet again. (It is
also indicative of the spotty nature of our information about this
period that we have no detailed information about this astonishing
event.) Gaius Gracchus would revive the proposal in three years' time,
with disastrous consequences.
Assessment
When
Tiberius Gracchus entered office, he endeavored to pass a bill on land
reform that was supported by influential members of the senate. When
presented, the bill aroused vigorous and not entirely unjusitfiable
opposition. When thwarted by one of his colleagues, Tiberius got his
way by having the opponent removed from office, an unprecedented event.
In effect, Tiberius put his own prestige in getting the billed passed
before any other considerations.
When
his opponents used the senate's financial powers to hinder the
implementation of the bill, Tiberius took another unprecedented move in
ignoring the senate's tradition oversight of state finances and foreign
policy by accepting the inheritance of the kingdom of Pergamum to fund
the implementation of his bill. This attack on the senate's position
led to a hardening of opposition to him, and in response he attempted
to seek an unprecedented re-election to the tribunate and was willing
to use force to manipulate the electoral process to achieve his end.
Clearly
Tiberius had little sense of proportion and was willing to attack the
various fundamental principles of the state in order to uphold his own
prestige. He was accused of attempting to establish himself in a
position of unassailable power (regnum) and a mob of senators killed
him and several hundred of his supporters to thwart this attempt. While
at the time it no doubt seemed an acceptable reaction to resort to
violence in order to stop this illegality, the violence would not stop
there.
Reaction To The Death Of Tiberius
There
was no single, clear-cut reaction to the death of Tiberius. Some common
people felt that he had been cut down while looking after their
interests, and formed a sort of Gracchan "faction." Things became so
difficult for Nasica that in order to remove him from harm's way the
senate sent him to Pergamum to investigate the troubles there, and he
conveniently soon died. Certain politicians posed as upholders of the
policies Tiberius had advocated.
But
not everyone was saddened by Tiberius' death. Though Scaevola prevented
any action against Tiberius' supporters, the consuls of 132 (apparently
elected on a platform of revenge) used their powers of relegation
(ability to force disreputable individuals to stay out of Rome) against
his supporters in a sort of quasi-legal investigation. Soon after
Scipio Aemilianus returned from his conquest of Numantia, he was asked
if he approved of Tiberius' death and replied that he thought he had
been legitimately killed if he had intended to seize control of the
state (a crafty answer, since its implications depended on whether the
"if" clause was considered true or not).
Later Activity Of The Agrarian Commission
We
are directly told that the senate did nothing to invalidate Tiberius'
agrarian legislation. The opposition was thus to the man and his
methods, not to the bill itself, which obviously had wide support. The
commission continued to function until 129, when it apparently began to
repossess land occupied by the Roman allies, who sent a delegation to
Scipio Aemilianus. As a result of his intervention, the senate passed a
decree that the power to adjudicate disputes over repossession should
be transferred to the consul, who promptly left Italy to fight a minor
war in Illyricum. At this point the commission apparently lapsed into
inaction until Tiberius' brother Gaius Gracchus revived it during his
tribunate.
Reforms of the Gracchi Brothers
So
as tribune in 133 BC Tiberius Gracchus proposed a land reform bill that
was supported by the consul Mucius Scaevola and Publius Crassus, the
richest Roman. The Licinian law of 367 BC, prohibiting anyone from
owning more than 330 acres, was being ignored. Though those owning more
than this were actually criminals, Tiberius' proposal would compensate
them with no rent on the public lands they would now own in perpetuity
up to this legal limit, and sons could retain another 165 acres each;
the rest would be distributed to the poor by a commission of himself,
his brother, and his father-in-law. Tiberius argued that the soldiers
and their families were homeless and deserved to share in the increased
Roman wealth. Nonetheless the wealthy landowners opposed the bill and
persuaded tribune Marcus Octavius to veto it. So Tiberius introduced a
more severe bill ordering the illegal owners to vacate the land with no
compensation, and he offered to pay Octavius with his own money for the
extensive lands he would lose; but Octavius refused, and a meeting with
the senate was in vain. Frustrated, Tiberius proposed that Octavius be
removed from the tribuneship; the tribes voted unanimously for this,
and Octavius was dragged away. The land reform law was passed, though
the senate resisted providing its expenses.
Going
against tradition again, Tiberius was the first tribune in two
centuries to be re-elected and proposed that the money left to the
Roman people in the will of Attalus III be used to help citizens stock
and cultivate these farms; he also reduced the period of military
service that had been from age 17 to 46, gave the people the right to
appeal jury verdicts, and added to the senators serving on juries an
equal number of knights. However, as 31 rural tribes dominated the four
urban tribes and because many of his supporters were busy with the
harvest, these proposals of Tiberius were not going to pass. In the
turmoil rumors spread that the rich had hired assassins to kill
Tiberius and that a gesture he had made toward his head recognizing
this was interpreted by his opponents as his asking for a crown. Led by
Scipio Nasica, the senators and their followers, armed with clubs,
staves, and broken benches, attacked Tiberius Gracchus, killing him and
300 others and throwing their bodies into the Tiber. Some of the
supporters of Tiberius were banished, and others including the
rhetorician Diophanes were executed. This was the first major outbreak
of civil violence in Rome since the expulsion of the kings nearly four
centuries before.
The
senate attempted to conciliate the people by allowing the distribution
of the land to proceed and by appointing Publius Crassus to the
commission. Threatened with impeachment, Nasica was sent to Asia. After
three years the rebellion in Sicily involving 75,000 self-liberated
slaves was brutally put down by the Roman legions of consul Rupilius.
Although Attalus III had bequeathed the kingdom of Pergamum to Rome,
Aristonicus claimed the throne and was supported by a similar revolt of
slaves calling themselves citizens of the sun, who defeated and killed
Crassus, then consul and the first chief priest to leave Italy. The
legions of consul Marcus Perperna subdued them though, and Aristonicus
was executed at Rome. The eastern portion of this kingdom was assigned
to client kings to control the frontiers; Telmissus went to the Lycian
confederacy, lands in Thrace to the province of Macedonia, and by 129
BC the rest had been organized as the province of Asia in the Roman
empire.
Scipio
Aemilianus got the land commission replaced by the consuls who did
little, and supporting Italians' right to citizenship, he angered urban
Romans and was found mysteriously dead one morning. Young Gaius
Gracchus went to Sardinia as quaestor and used his oratorical skill
touring cities pleading for clothing to relieve the army. In 125 BC
consul Fulvius Flaccus proposed citizenship for most of the Italian
allies, but the senate sent him off to help Massilia (Marseilles) fight
the Gauls. The bill was defeated, and the revolt by the Latin colony of
Fregellae was crushed. Gaius Gracchus was elected tribune in 123 BC and
proposed numerous reforms protecting citizens from banishment by
magistrates without trial, dividing public lands among the poor,
supplying soldiers with clothing at state expense, extending the
franchise to Italians, founding colonies at Tarentum and Capua,
constructing roads, and providing grain for the poor at a low price.
Facing the people when he spoke instead of the senate, all these laws
were passed, and Gaius was allowed to select the new jurors, now all
from the equestrian order. These wealthy merchant "knights" also
benefited by Rome's selling of tax collection privileges in the
provinces to the highest capitalist bidders.
Gaius
Gracchus successfully urged the election of Fannius as consul and was
re-elected as tribune without campaigning. After visiting Africa, where
a new colony was being set up on the site of destroyed Carthage, Gaius
returned to Rome to find that Fannius was expelling all those not born
in Rome. Gracchus denounced this policy and promised support to those
who stayed, though he did nothing when one of his friends was dragged
away to prison. New Gracchian reforms were undercut by demogogic
proposals of consul Livius Drusus that were never implemented.
According to Plutarch, Gaius was denied a third tribuneship when the
election results were falsified after he had the seats for watching
gladiators at the forum torn down so that magistrates would not sell
them to spectators.
The
reforms of Tiberius Gracchus remained law after his death, and more
reforms were made law after the Plebeian Assembly elected his younger
brother, Gaius Gracchus, tribune in the years 123 and 122. Gaius
Gracchus helped create more colonies for Rome's landless. He sponsored
legislation to put people to work building secondary roads. He helped
improve conditions within the army and outlawed its recruitment of boys
under seventeen. And he increased the capacity of storing grain in
Rome, which helped stabilize grain prices.
The
party of the consul Opimius planned to revoke the Gracchi laws, and
both factions gathered at the capitol. A servant of Opimius, who made
an insulting gesture, was stabbed to death by a crowd with long iron
writing implements. This gave Opimius the excuse to have the senate
declare an emergency, as he asked the senators to arm themselves and
the knights to bring two armed servants with them the next morning.
Negotiation by envoy with the party of Gaius and Fulvius on the
Aventine hill failed, and Opimius advanced on them with Cretan archers
shooting. Gaius fled to the temple of Diana; but as rewards had been
offered for his and Fulvius's heads, they both were killed. Three
thousand of their supporters were also executed, and their property was
confiscated. Opimius was the first consul to make himself dictator; he
was prosecuted by the people's tribunal for putting people to death
without a trial but acquitted, though later Opimius was convicted of
bribery in the Jugurthine War.
The
same year Gaius Gracchus died (121 BC), it was said that 120,000 Gauls
were killed by the Roman army near the Rhone, and the new province of
Transalpine Gaul or Narbonensis was added to the empire. According to
Appian the knights on juries became addicted to bribes, and the rich
bought the land allotments of the poor or found pretexts for taking
them by force; land distribution was discontinued; rent was collected,
and though some of it was distributed to the poor, after many lawsuits
much unemployment resulted. In 114 BC after a Vestal virgin was killed
by lightning, the Sibylline oracles were consulted, and a Greek and
Gallic couple were sacrificed in the forum as had been done in 225 BC,
though the senate finally banned human sacrifice in 97 BC.
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