Talk:Gracchi brothers

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Untitled, 8 Aug 2002[edit]

This article seems to be overwhelingly about Tiberius Gracchus. Perhaps that content should be moved to that page, and any other Gracchi might be mentioned here? --Brion VIBBER

This article is missing the meat of the story, which is that both Gracchi were murdered by the Senate, becoming some sort of "martyrs of the people", like Malcolm X, or something. Also that bit at the end about thugs is definitely not NPOV. Lemme dig up my books and I'll add to this. Graft 17:07 Aug 8, 2002 (PDT)

Moved back to Tiberius page Muriel Gottrop 10:23, 7 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Surely it's not possible to be both noble and plebeian? Isn't noble just a synonym for Patrician, or am I mistaken?--Alun 10:38, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Actually, it was possible to be noble and plebeian - many of the top noble families were. Exactly who the nobles are is open to some speculation (but see Brunt, PA 1982 'Nobilitas and Novitas' JHS 72 p1.17 for a brief summary of some positions). I suspect most believe that nobles were those who could count a consul among their ancestors. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 196.10.121.2 (talk) 08:51, 25 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This is how it was taught to me by my professor of ancient Roman history: the term 'nobilitas' denotes a mixture of patricians (i.e. descendants of Rome's earliest inhabitants, making up its upper class) and plebeians (= descendants of later immigrants), who, after plebeians were allowed to stand for the consulate (367 BC: the leges Liciniae), were incorporated into the senatorial order, which was originally all-patrician. Old patricians (patres) and new senators (conscripti) made up what became known as the 'nobilitas'. So, yes, you could be plebeian and noble at the same time. 'Noble' and 'patrician' aren't synonyms. (Stefan van den Broeck) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.201.241.142 (talk) 13:23, 15 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

While this is all correct, "Patres conscripti" simply means "Conscript Fathers". Conscriptus is a participle, and Pater is the noun.
It is also important to note that there were Novi Homines (people who were the first of their ancestry to become Consul) who were also Plebeian for some time. Cicero was one such individual, for instance -- though he was from the highest class of plebeian. There are other notable examples of such Novi Homines nonetheless. 2601:647:6100:32A0:0:0:0:38DC (talk) 10:09, 2 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Changes April 2009[edit]

Have just made a moderately large edit to expand the article. I moved some of the original writing about a bit to keep it coherent. Some changes I’ve made are to make it more clear that the reforms were focussed on economic conditions, not so much at the army. And to make it a little clearer that Equestrians were not an altogether separate class from senators. Ive taken out the mention of Gaius committing suicide as Ive never seen that in any of the sources, and it contradicts what was already written in the lede. FeydHuxtable (talk) 10:36, 25 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Untitled, 10 Dec 2010[edit]

This article seems to present a somewhat romanticized view of the Gracchi. Not only did Tiberius Gracchus claim that a tribune who opposed the will of the people was no tribune at all, he brought a bill to have said tribune, Octavius, to be voted out of office in an unconstitutional action. And Gaius' attempts to curry the favor of not only the people but also of foreigners by attempting to grant citizenship to the Latins make it seem like he could very well have been gathering allies for war. Furthermore, it cannot be assumed that just because a politician courts the good will of the people his intentions are pure. To cite the goal of the two as the same and clear-cut is overly simple, I think. It was a very common practice in the late republic to court the support of the people to increase one's own power, as Julius Caesar did. On that note, footnote 1 as well as the sentence in which it is referenced seem to be lacking in sources.132.161.244.108 (talk) 04:17, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Had a quick search for a source to support the Gracchi being seen as founding fathers of socialism but couldnt find one thats clearly not derivative. So I guess you could remove the sentence if you want. As for the overall article, it has a less romantic view than the one on offer in some of the sources such as Stobbart. Gaius's plans to include Latins sounds more the desire of a man of principle than that of an opportunist's, he must have guessed it would cost him popular support. The evidence seems to be that he forged on with a noble reform project even though he knew it had cost his brother's life. Of course if there are any scholarly sources that speculate they may have had base motives those can be included. FeydHuxtable (talk) 17:06, 16 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Stobart[edit]

I removed the Stobart material because it seemed impertinent and came from an old secondary source. Given that it's been reverted I'll mostly keep it, as it's fairly harmless. But the part about the Gracchi being taught "democratic views that all the power rightly belongs to the people" is wrong and a clear misinterpretation of what Stobart is saying on p. 77. Somebody seems to have read him a bit too quickly. Catobonus (talk) 01:39, 3 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for this, look likes a well meaning copy editor introduced an error. I've restored mostly my original wording from 2009, which says that the view they learnt about power belonging to the people applied to a democracy (not a democratic view that applies without qualification. This is now exactly reflected by p77. The restored info is highly pertinent, given that both Gracchi lost their lives due to their enthusiastic representation for the people against the elite. Stobart is only 50 years old, so as were dealing with a period before Christ the age of the source is not a problem. FeydHuxtable (talk) 06:53, 3 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Academic history moves quickly and works become outdated. I'm still worried that this edit overemphasises democracy (more than Stobart does and more than is reasonable) and your claim that the Gracchi were out to represent the people is certainly not a self-evident or uncontested one. I hope my new compromise is acceptable.Catobonus (talk) 15:12, 4 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
It's not acceptable. You're trying to delete a well sourced piece of information that's central to understanding the Gracchi's story. I.e. due to their education, their fatal mistake was to think they could count on support of the people to overcome wealthy nobles in the same wasy as did Greeks like Pericles. If you're still worried about over empahases on democracy, one solution would be for you to expand the article to include Stobart's coverage of the Greek tutors 3 fold division of politcal organisation into monarchies , aristocracies, and democracies. (The implicit point being that they'd lumped democracies and republics toghether, a lack of refinement that can have costly consequcnes). Be careful not to stick to closely to Stobart's original wording - we're already begining to verge in that direction. FeydHuxtable (talk) 14:28, 5 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think it's well-sourced at all to be honest. A historian would not cite this work for this purpose because it's dated. Catobonus (talk) 03:15, 6 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Im not so sure, do you have any sources indicating recently discovered primary sources or changes in interpretation that would render Stobart dated? Please don't introduce false and miseleading claims into our articles as you did by by adding the word 'Greek' imediatly before "democracy". Stobart is clear that the tutors were trying to teach a general and universal point about what they saw as the nature of democracy. Widespread skepticism against Greek / Western universalism did not become common until the 20th century. Here's a link that advises about our policy on introducing editors own original thinking into articles when it's not backed up by sources: WP:OR. FeydHuxtable (talk) 21:31, 15 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
First, Stobart isn't dated by virtue of any later sources. He is dated by virtue of his date. Secondly, I'm very confused by your point about democracies. There were no democracies known to the ancient world except Greek ones. Democracy was known as a Greek idea, and Stobart understands that. If you've read, for instance, Polybius, you would know that mention of democracy immediately invoked Greece. Stobart knows that his readers understand this but it needs to be included here for a non-academic audience. Catobonus (talk) 11:38, 16 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I would also add that 'rightly' is your own invention and is the only OR in the paragraph. That's a clear misrepresentation of what Stobart says. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Catobonus (talk • contribs) 11:39, 16 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
In the field of classics, there is rarely nowadays any new seminal work. The late 19th and early 20th are still when many of the most recent pull translations of certain classical authors occurred. This is something which can be observed instantly by observing when the last Critical Editions were compiled on average for authors of the period. And most interlinear translations published by Harvard University Press were produced in the early 1900s. 2601:647:6100:32A0:0:0:0:38DC (talk) 10:03, 2 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The idea that people are no longer publishing new translations is just wrong. Just HUP's Loeb collections notes a number of new translations, many highly praised in the BMCR:

The Gracchi were not patricians[edit]

Please stop mentioning that the Gracchi were patricians. They were not. This makes the article self-contradictory and misleading. It would be incredible indeed if the most famous tribunes were patricians.Catobonus (talk) 13:48, 2 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Revert[edit]

@Quuxplusone: What is the justification for your revert at https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gracchi&diff=1072468563&oldid=1072288182 ? There are major problems with the previous article. Among other things, it creates a far more cohesive narrative between the two brothers than is supportable by modern sources (the nature of land reform being especially drawn together even though that does not reflect things well). Ifly6 (talk) 03:09, 23 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Possible move?[edit]

Gracchi is basically the entire branch of the family. If the vast majority of the article is about the brothers (with only minimal no discussion of other people in the family), a clearer organisation would be to split to Gracchi brothers and leave Gracchi as a stub. It doesn't seem this was considered in the past, the redirect from Gracchi brothers was created ab initio as a redirect. Ifly6 (talk) 03:12, 23 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Move was completed. Ifly6 (talk) 23:27, 23 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Oswald Spengler and "Reasons for Failure" section[edit]

What purpose does citing Oswald Spengler -- a fascist whose work inspired the Nazis -- in this article serve? The theory itself has very little to add to an understanding of the Gracchi beyond the author's speculations about human nature, and this is not exactly an instance where a person's political views are separate from their work. If this were part of a discussion of the reception of the Gracchi in later thought, or their political influence on the 20th century it would make sense to mention him, however it is in a section titled "Reasons for Failure", which a reader would expect to lay out an impartial account of events, and presented alongside professional modern historians. To be honest this whole section existing as a compilation of opinions in the middle of a page that's otherwise recounting historical events is a little odd, as is the use of the term "failure" in such a general sense. Menziesii (talk) 16:46, 17 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, it should be removed. I removed it in this diff, which largely rewrote the article, but was reverted. I qualified with two sources that Spengler was a proto-fascist at this diff but also was reverted. Note also that I am working on a rewrite of this whole article. Ifly6 (talk) 18:54, 17 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That's good to hear. I'd support the removal of the entire section and its sources; I don't see why Spengler should come into it at all. Or Stobart (1911!?) Haploidavey (talk) 19:17, 17 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Stobart's book is and wasn't an academic source even in his time. He even said so in the Preface: [My book] is, in the main, frankly a derivative history intended for readers who are not specialists. The book received basically no academic reviews (or I cannot find them). The opinion sourced here, that C Gracchus was influenced by Greek political philosophy on popular sovereignty, is also rejected in more recent scholarship. I removed Stobart in my original rewrite of this article that was reverted without comment or explanation. The book adds nothing that could not be found elsewhere in a better source and is regardless obsolete. Ifly6 (talk) 20:03, 17 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed! By the way, I've just had a read-through of your article rewrite. It seems to be headed in a useful, readable direction. Haploidavey (talk) 20:14, 17 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Spengler's tractatus is and never was a reliable source on Roman politics or political history. It should never have been added in the first place. Ifly6 (talk) 20:15, 17 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I just deleted the paragraphs on Spengler and on Weil saying that Gracchus, preceded by some ancillary possibly-fictitious character who was the best slave ever, was super kind-hearted. Ifly6 (talk) 20:17, 17 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
And it already reads better for those small amputations. It amazes me how firmly the late Victorian scholarly establishment seems to believe that histories which don't provide a moral lesson are just so many wasted opportunities. Haploidavey (talk) 21:03, 17 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you, that's definitely an improvement. Very encouraging to get this response and see such good discussion. Best of luck with your rewrite Menziesii (talk) 23:24, 17 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Lead tagged[edit]

@Grnrchst: you placed a citation-needed tag after "Scholars today view these socialist comparisons as unapt", the last sentence of the lead, with the edit comment "Tagged claims of "proto-socialism" as needing citations". On the face of it, that suggests you too regard these socialist comparisons as dubious, but are you in fact saying that "view ... as unapt" needs supporting? Alternatively, it's the previous statement that "They were also portrayed inaccurately as social revolutionaries and proto-socialists during the French Revolution and afterwards" for which you're seeking citations, perhaps for them having been so portrayed or perhaps for that being inaccurate. Please can you clarify?

(There are citations in Gracchi brothers#Modern reception; maybe you'd like to say which you think need repeating in the lead.) NebY (talk) 09:51, 3 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@NebY: Apologies, my edit summary should have been clearer. I tagged that part of the lead as I couldn't find anywhere in the body with sourced information on scholars specifically disputing their characterisation as proto-socialists. In fact, the only mention of proto-socialism in the body is uncited and frankly non-neutral: "Early modern perspectives wrongly stressed the nature of the agrarian reforms as a kind of proto-socialism." So I think while parts of the tagged paragraph could be kept (like their influence on French revolutionaries like Babeuf), I'm wondering where their association with proto-socialism is coming from, when I can't see any sources for that. It's less that I find the claims of proto-socialism dubious, more that I'm asking for sources on their characterisation (or mis-characterisation) as such. --Grnrchst (talk) 10:04, 3 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Got it, thanks. Pinging Ifly6, who may have at their fingertips a cite for that sentence at the start of Gracchi brothers#Reception and historiography or for some rephrasing of it. Ideally, there might be some recent WP:RS overview saying that people used to call them proto-socialists but that's been refuted. Maybe alternatively we'd say that in the [early 20C or suchlike] some [called them / treated them as] [proto?]socialists (cite A & B doing so, or X's later rebuttal) but in [the late 20C or suchlike] this was strongly rebutted/refuted (cite X & Y doing so). NebY (talk) 13:35, 3 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
On mobile. See the pre-rewrite révisions of this page. Ifly6 (talk) 16:46, 3 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, I too have looked through current sources etc and also cannot find a reliable source characterisation as porto-socialist. Looking through Google Scholar, I did find a few cases (which are so bad qua classical scholarship I feel bad even acknowledging their existence): this random "party politics" article and this website. This article in the Classical Journal (p 66) off-handedly remarks that people have called them revolutionaries, socialists, and demagogues. Ifly6 (talk) 17:36, 3 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict)Thanks. Quick sampling of the article back to 2017 throws up Stobard The Grandeur that was Rome (1912) and Spengler The Decline of the West (1922) being used as sources, but no indication in the article if one or both used "socialist" or "proto-socialist", alas. Someone now blocked for socking put the article in Category:Proto-socialists in 2021. NebY (talk) 17:39, 3 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm, there's a case for simply ignoring such talk of them being socialists! Something more like "they were held up as exemplary reformers during the French Revolution, the enclosures in the United Kindom and since, or described as martyrs but shortsighted, extreme and precipitating revolution", followed by a little about modern scholarship? (Martyrs etc is Scullard.) NebY (talk) 18:08, 3 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think it's certainly worthwhile to weaken the wording to something more like Their policies have been mischaracterised as socialist then with a short description. Speaking more personally, I know of people (in person and on the Internet) who think the Gracchi were socialists. Ifly6 (talk) 18:45, 3 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
To be honest, I think that would still fall under original research. From what sources have been mentioned here, it seems they have indeed been labelled as proto-socialists (Taylor 1942) and socialists. But saying they were "mischaracterised" in wikivoice, without any reliable source disputing that categorisation, would be bad practice in my opinion. -- Grnrchst (talk) 11:42, 4 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Two notes. First, the characterisation as socialist has been disproved; calling it a mischaracterisation or inaccurate seems a reasonable paraphrase. Second, WP:OR discusses the non-existence of sources and not their non-presence here. See Note a thereat: By "exist", the community means that the reliable source must have been published and still exist... even if no source is currently named in the article. Articles that currently name zero references of any type may be fully compliant with this policy... Ifly6 (talk) 16:58, 4 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, so are there sources that exist that disprove this? Because it would be helpful to cite those. -- Grnrchst (talk) 18:06, 4 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
First, the characterisation as socialist has been disproved; calling it a mischaracterisation or inaccurate seems a reasonable paraphrase. I'm not entirely sure to what portions you are objecting and on what basis. Ifly6 (talk) 13:40, 5 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Cuckoo edits; the population of Italy did not fall[edit]

@Titus Fisher: I reverted portions of your edits. There were a couple of reasons. First, there is no need to change proper spelling to American variants without consensus. This is not an American topic. See WP:ENGVAR for more details. Second, the population of Italy did not fall. Appian and Plutarch's claims thereof are wrong. Editing the portion cited to Roselaar 2010, below, has two problems:

these population reductions while could be connected to a certain extent to the fact that people in the 130s BC skipped the draft to simply stop themselves from being conscripted, some scholars also Argive this reduction in population might also have to do with other reason that were primly connected in reducing a population's number such as famine, increase in death rate and decrease in birthrate.

The first is that it is factually inaccurate. Modern reliable sources, especially after with Rosenstein Rome at war (2004), are very clear that the archaeological evidence points toward the "population reductions" in Appian and Plutarch being fictitious and having no place in reality. This is why the text I wrote emphasises a reported decline: census reported a reduction in the republic's citizen population. Introducing material which treats the "population reduction" as actual misleads readers. It also is a WP:CUCKOO edit which miscasts Roselaar 2010, who presents the modern view of no pouplation decline, into being incorrectly equivocal on a matter that is well-settled. Ifly6 (talk) 19:10, 12 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Am I the last person to know this?[edit]

About 45 years ago I was living in Rome, and I spent the odd day wandering around the ruins of Ostia Antica. One day I was there with a friend who had lived in Rome for many years. We were in the section of the ancient cemetery, and she said, "Look at this." To the left of the pathway was what I can only remember as a sort of a hole that was almost overgrown with surrounding weeds. We knelt down and brushed the greenery aside and looked into it. There was a fairly small stone on which could be read "Gracchus". I don't believe there had been much, if any, excavations in Ostia Antica at that time, and I haven't been back there for many years. I just wonder if anyone else still knows the burial site of one of the Gracchi. 5.80.173.14 (talk) 08:13, 5 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

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