Gracchi brothers: Difference between revisions
lmao they're not proto-socialists. they want privatisation of the land and equestrians (the bourgeoisie) to control the state. also the populares don't exist Tags: Reverted 2017 wikitext editor |
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{{For|the branch of gens Sempronia which they came from|Sempronii Gracchi}} |
{{For|the branch of gens Sempronia which they came from|Sempronii Gracchi}} |
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The '''Gracchi brothers''', [[Tiberius Gracchus|Tiberius]] and [[Gaius Gracchus|Gaius]], were Romans who both served as [[Tribune of the Plebs|tribunes of the plebs]] between 133 and 121 BC. They attempted to redistribute the occupation of the ''[[ager publicus]]''— the public land hitherto controlled principally by aristocrats—to the urban poor and veterans, in addition to other social and constitutional reforms. After achieving some early success, both were assassinated by the [[Optimates]], the conservative faction in the [[Roman Senate|senate]] that opposed these reforms. |
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The '''Gracchi brothers''' where two Roman brothers, sons of the [[Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus (consul 177 BC)|Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus]] who was consul in 177 BC. [[Tiberius Gracchus|Tiberius]], the elder brother, was [[tribune of the plebs]] in 133 BC and [[Gaius Gracchus|Gaius]], the younger brother, was tribune a decade later between 123–22 BC.{{sfn|Broughton|1952|p=615}} |
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== |
==Early life== |
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[[File:Cornelia, Mother of the Gracchi, Presents Her Children to a Capuana Woman.jpg| |
[[File:Cornelia, Mother of the Gracchi, Presents Her Children to a Capuana Woman.jpg|left|thumb|340x340px| Engraving after Vincenzo Camuccini, ''[https://library.nga.gov/discovery/fulldisplay?docid=alma991743223804896&vid=01NGA_INST:IMAGE Cornelia, Mother of the Gracchi, Presents Her Children to a Capuana Woman]'', 1870/1909, [https://www.nga.gov/research/library/imagecollections.html Department of Image Collections, National Gallery of Art Library], Washington, DC.]] |
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The brothers were born to a [[Plebs|plebeian]] branch of the old and noble [[Sempronia gens|Sempronia family]]. Their father was the elderly [[Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus (consul 177 BC)|Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus]] who was [[tribune of the plebs]], [[praetor]], [[consul]], and [[Roman censor|censor]]. Their mother was [[Cornelia (mother of the Gracchi)|Cornelia]], daughter of [[Scipio Africanus]], himself considered a hero by the Roman people for his part in the war against Carthage. Their parents had 12 children, but only [[Sempronia (sister of the Gracchi)|one daughter]]—who later married [[Scipio Aemilianus]]—and two sons, Tiberius and Gaius, survived childhood.<ref name="Grandeur">{{cite book |last=Stobart|first=J.C.| editor1-first = W.S |editor1-last=Maguinness |editor2-first=H.H. |editor2-last=Scullard|title=The Grandeur That was Rome|edition=4th |chapter = III|pages = 75–82|orig-year=1964|publisher =Book Club Associates |year=1978}}</ref> |
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After the boys' father died while they were young, responsibility for their education fell to their mother. Cornelia ensured that the brothers had the best available Greek tutors, teaching them oratory and political science. The brothers were also well trained in martial pursuits; in horsemanship and combat they outshone all their peers. The older brother Tiberius was elected an [[augur]] at only 16 – according to the historian J. C. Stobart, had he taken the easy path rather than the cause of radical reform, he would have been clearly destined for [[Roman consul|consulship]]. Tiberius was the most distinguished young officer in the [[Third Punic War]], Rome's last campaign against [[Carthage]]. He was the first to scale Carthage's walls; before that he saved an army of 20,000 men by skilled diplomacy. As the boys grew up, they developed strong connections with the ruling elite.<ref name="Grandeur"/> |
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Their father was the elderly [[Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus (consul 177 BC)|Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus]] who had served as [[tribune of the plebs]], [[praetor]], [[consul]], and [[Roman censor|censor]]. Their mother was [[Cornelia (mother of the Gracchi)|Cornelia]], daughter of [[Scipio Africanus]], himself considered a hero by the Roman people for his part in the war against Carthage. Their parents had 12 children, but only [[Sempronia (sister of the Gracchi)|one daughter]] – who later married [[Scipio Aemilianus]] – and two sons, Tiberius and Gaius, survived childhood.<ref name="Grandeur">{{cite book |last=Stobart|first=J.C. |editor1-first= W.S |editor1-last=Maguinness |editor2-first=H.H. |editor2-last=Scullard|title=The Grandeur That was Rome|edition=4th |chapter=III |pages = 75–82|orig-year=1964|publisher =Book Club Associates |year=1978}}</ref><!-- This citation seems broken somehow. --> |
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==Gracchi reforms== |
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The elder Gracchus died when were young and responsibility for the boys' education fell to their mother, who ensured that they were well-read and educated. As the boys grew up, they developed strong connections with the ruling elite.<ref name="Grandeur"/> |
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=== |
=== Background === |
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Central to the Gracchi reforms was an attempt to address economic distress and its military consequences. Much [[public land]] (''[[ager publicus]]'') had been divided among large landholders and speculators who further expanded their estates by driving peasants off their farms. While their old lands were being worked by slaves, the peasants were often forced into idleness in Rome where they had to subsist on handouts due to a scarcity of paid work. They could not legally join the army because they did not meet the property qualification; and this, together with the lack of public land to give in exchange for military service and the [[mutiny|mutinies]] in the [[Numantine War]], caused recruitment problems and troop shortages. |
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[[File:Tiberius Gracchus.jpg|thumb|250px|right|Portrayal in the ''[[Promptuarium Iconum Insigniorum]]''.]] |
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{{main|Tiberius Gracchus}} |
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The Gracchi aimed to address these problems by reclaiming lands from wealthy members of the senatorial class that could then be granted to soldiers; by restoring land to displaced peasants; by providing subsidized grain for the needy and by having the Republic pay for the clothing of its poorest soldiers.<ref name = "Rubicon">{{cite book|author = Tom Holland|title=Rubicon: The Last Years of the Roman Republic|year= 2004|isbn=9780349115634|pages = 28–30|publisher = Abacus|title-link=Rubicon: The Last Years of the Roman Republic|author-link=Tom Holland (author)}}</ref> |
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According to the historian J. C. Stobart, had Tiberius taken the easy path rather than the cause of radical reform, he would have been clearly destined for [[Roman consul|consulship]].{{cn|date=February 2022}} |
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===Reforms of Tiberius Gracchus=== |
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Tiberius was a distinguished young officer in the [[Third Punic War]]: Tiberius, along with Gaius Fannius, was among the first to scale Carthage's walls.{{sfn|Broughton|1951|pp=464, 468}} He was later elected as quaestor and served in the Numantine war under [[Gaius Hostilius Mancinus]].{{sfn|Broughton|1951|pp=484–5}} During the campaign, when the Roman army had been surrounded, he negotiated a treaty – later rejected by the [[Roman Senate|senate]] – in which he received terms of safe passage for the army from Numantine territory.{{sfn|Goldsworthy|2016|p=119}} |
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[[Tiberius Gracchus|Tiberius]] was elected to the office of [[Tribune of the Plebs]] in 133 BC. He immediately began pushing for a programme of [[land reform]], partly by invoking the 240-year-old [[Lex Licinia Sextia|Sextian-Licinian law]] that limited the amount of land that could be owned by a single individual. Using the powers of [[Lex Hortensia]], Tiberius established a commission to oversee the redistribution of land holdings from the rich to the unlanded urban poor. The commission consisted of himself, his father-in-law and his brother Gaius.<ref name="Grandeur"/> |
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Even liberal senators were agitated by the proposed changes, fearing their own lands would be confiscated. Senators arranged for other tribunes to oppose the reforms. Tiberius then appealed to the people, and argued that a tribune who opposes the will of the people in favour of the rich is not a true tribune. The senators were left with only one constitutional response – to threaten prosecution after Tiberius's term as a tribune ended. This meant Tiberius had to stand for a second term.<ref name="Grandeur"/> |
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Tiberius, with the support of many influential senators, was successful in passing land reform legislation that established a commission to distribute public land to the rural plebs. His stubbornness and refusal to compromise may have been motivated by the senatorial rebuff of his negotiations after the Numantine affair.{{sfn|Flower|2010|p=101|ps=. "It also has been argued that a rebuff that Tiberius had suffered—when the treaty that he had negotiated as quaestor [with the Numantines]—was a key factor in the way he behaved during his tribunate ... Tiberius had suffered a loss of face and could preserve his own ambitions and standing only by successfully proposing a political initiative".}} He, however, broke substantial political norms in the tactics – deposing a tribune, trampling on the senate's authority, etc – used to pass the laws. These political tactics were the main focus of backlash, rather than his land reform law, which survived his death.{{sfn|Roselaar|2010|p=240}} When he stood for consecutive re-election, his first cousin, [[Publius Cornelius Scipio Nasica Corculum]], led a mob which beat him to death during the electoral ''comitia''.{{sfn|Beard|2015|p=224}} This opposition was political: Gracchus' land reforms "may have been acceptable", but not when combined with his seeming threats "to make the urban populace and the small peasants his personal ''clientelae''".{{sfn|Gruen|1968|p=58}} |
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The senators obstructed his re-election. They also gathered an ''ad hoc''{{efn|Latin: "for this purpose; literally "towards this" – the force being assembled for the specific purpose of deposing Tiberius as a tribune.}} force, with several of them personally marching to the Forum, and had Tiberius and some 300 of his supporters clubbed to death. This was the first open bloodshed in Roman politics in nearly four centuries.<ref>{{cite book |
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=== Gaius Sempronius Gracchus === |
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|author = [[Nigel Rodgers]], Hazel Dodge|title= Rome: The Greatest Empire|page = 24|year= 2005|isbn= 978-1-84476-150-0|publisher = Southwater}}</ref> |
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{{main|Gaius Gracchus}} |
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Tiberius's land reform commission continued distributing lands, albeit much more slowly than Tiberius had envisaged, as Senators were able to eliminate more of the commission's supporters by legal means. |
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Gaius Gracchus served in the Roman army under Scipio Aemilianus during the campaign against Numantia starting in 133 BC.{{sfn|Badian|2014|loc=para 1}} He may have held the military tribunate during his service there.{{sfn|Broughton|1951|p=491}} During his elder brother Tiberius' tribunate, he started his political career{{sfn|von Ungern-Sternberg|2014|p=82}} with election as a commissioner in the Gracchan land commission to distribute public land poor families.{{sfn|Badian|2014|loc=para 1}}{{sfn|Brunt|1988|pp=466-67}} |
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===Reforms of Gaius Gracchus=== |
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He was elected to the tribunate of 123 BC, a decade after his brother's tribunate.{{sfn|Broughton|1951|p=513}} He was also successful in achieving re-election and therefore also served in the tribunate of 122 BC. He proposed many laws during his first year, to: |
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[[File:Gaius Gracchus Tribune of the People.jpg|thumb|300px|Gaius Gracchus addressing the [[Plebeian Council|Plebeians]].]] |
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Ten years later, in 123 BC, [[Gaius Gracchus|Gaius]] took the same office as his brother, as a [[Tribune of the Plebs]]. Gaius was more practically minded than Tiberius and consequently was considered more dangerous by the senatorial class. He gained support from the agrarian poor by reviving the land reform programme and from the urban poor with various popular measures. He also sought support from the second estate, those [[Equestrian order|equestrians]] who had not ascended to become senators. |
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Many equestrians were [[publicans]], in charge of tax collecting in the Roman province of [[Asia (Roman province)|Asia]] (located in western [[Anatolia]]), and of contracting for construction projects. The equestrian class would get to control a court that tried senators for misconduct in provincial administration. In effect, the equestrians replaced senators already serving at the court. Thus, Gaius became an opponent of senatorial influence. Other reforms implemented by Gaius included fixing prices on [[grain]] for the urban population and granting improvements in citizenship for [[Latins (Italic tribe)|Latins]] and others outside the city of Rome. |
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* bar deposed magistrates from standing for office, which was withdrawn at his mother's request, |
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* reaffirm compulsory appeal to the people in capital cases, |
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* create a state-subsidised grain supply, |
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* re-affirm Tiberius' agricultural laws, |
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* codify the terms of military service,{{sfn|Rich|1983|p=319}} |
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* establish tax farming in Asia, |
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* require the senate to determine consular provincial assignments before consular elections, |
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* authorise the construction of granaries, roads, and other public works, |
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* establish new Roman colonies at Scolacium and Tarentum, |
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* incorporate ''equites'' into the juries of the permanent courts, which likely failed, |
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* further restrict judicial bribery, and |
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* to levy new customs duties.{{sfn|Broughton|1951|pp=513–14}} |
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With this broad coalition of supporters, Gaius held his office for two years and had much of his prepared legislation passed. This included winning an unconstitutional re-election to the one-year office of Tribune.<ref name = "Rubicon"/> However Gaius's plans to extend rights to non-Roman Italians were eventually vetoed by another Tribune. A substantial proportion of the Roman poor, protective of their privileged Roman citizenship, turned against Gaius.<ref name="Grandeur"/> With Gaius's support from the people weakened, the consul [[Lucius Opimius]] was able to crush the Gracchan movement by force. A mob was raised to assassinate Gaius. Knowing his death was imminent, he committed suicide on the [[Aventine Hill]] in 121 BC. All of his reforms were undermined except for the grain laws. Three thousand supporters were subsequently arrested and put to death in the [[proscription]]s that followed. |
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In his second year, he brought proposals to: |
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===Assessment and reasons for failure=== |
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* require juries of ''equites'' in the permanent corruption courts, |
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According to the classicist [[J. C. Stobart]], Tiberius's Greek education had caused him to overestimate the reliability of the people as a power base, causing him to overplay his hand. In Rome, even when led by a bold Tribune, the people enjoyed much less influence than at the height of the [[Athenian democracy]]. Another problem for Gaius's aims was that the [[Roman Constitution|Roman constitution]], specifically the [[Tribal Assembly]], was designed to prevent any one individual governing for a sustained period of time – and there were several other checks and balances to prevent power being concentrated on any one person. Stobart adds that another reason for the failure was the Gracchi's idealism: they were deaf to the baser notes of human nature and failed to recognize how corrupt and selfish all sections of Roman society had become.<ref name="Grandeur"/> |
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* give citizenship and Latin rights to the Latins and Italians, respectively, and |
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* require a random order of voting in the [[Centuriate Assembly]].{{sfn|Broughton|1951|pp=517–18}} |
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According to [[Oswald Spengler]], the characteristic mistake of the Gracchan age was to believe in the possibility of the reversibility of history,<ref>{{cite book |
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His Italian citizenship bills, along with those on voting reform, failed, revealing his waning popularity. He was then defeated when standing for re-election.{{sfn|Broughton|1951|p=518}} In the next year, [[Lucius Opimius|a consul]] was elected who opposed Gracchus' legislation. He exploited the unrest associated with protests against repeal of the laws on equestrian juries and reestablishment of a colony at Carthage to have martial law declared via the ''[[senatus consultum ultimum]]''. He then proceeded to suppress Gracchus, his ally [[Marcus Fulvius Flaccus (consul 125 BC)|Marcus Fulvius Flaccus]], and other supporters by force.{{sfn|Broughton|1951|p=520}} |
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|last=Spengler |
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|first=Oswald |
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|title=The Decline of the West(An abridged edition) |
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|page = 384 |
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|year=1922 |
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|isbn=978-1-4000-9700-5 |
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|publisher =Vintage Books, 2006|title-link=The Decline of the West |
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}}</ref> a form of idealism which according to Spengler was at that time shared by both sides of the political spectrum. For example, [[Cato the Censor|Cato]] had sought to turn back the clock to the time of [[Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus|Cincinnatus]] and restore virtue by a return to austerity.<ref name="Grandeur"/> |
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The philosopher [[Simone Weil]] ranked the conduct of the Gracchi second out of all the known cases of good-hearted conduct recorded by history for classical Rome, ahead of the Scipios and Virgil.<ref>{{cite book |
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==Aftermath== |
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|author=Simone Weil |
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|title=The Need for Roots |
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|page = 228 |
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|year=2002 |
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|isbn=978-0-415-27102-8 |
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|publisher = [[Routledge]]|title-link=The Need for Roots |
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|author-link=Simone Weil |
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}}</ref>{{efn|Weil gives first ranking to Gaius Plotius Plancus and his slaves. During the proscriptions of the [[Second Triumvirate]], the slaves endured torture so as to protect their master, the master seeing this came out of hiding to spare his slaves further pain and was executed.}} |
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Historian [[Michael Crawford (historian)|Michael Crawford]] attributes the disappearance of much of Tiberius Gracchus' support to the reduced level of citizen participation due to dispersal far from Rome, and sees his tribunate as marking a step in the Hellenization of the Roman aristocracy. Crawford asserts that Gaius Gracchus' extortion law shifted the balance of power in Rome and that the Gracchi made available a new political armoury which the oligarchy subsequently sought to exploit.<ref>{{cite book|last=Crawford|first=Michael|title=The Roman Republic|date=1992|publisher=Fontana|location=London|isbn=9780006862505|pages=110–111, 121–123|edition=2nd}}</ref> |
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The impact of Tiberius' murder started a cycle of increased aristocratic violence to suppress popular movements: "the oligarchy had introduced violence into the political system with the murder of Tiberius Gracchus and over the years the use of violence became increasingly acceptable as various political disputes in Rome led to more and more bloody discord".<ref>{{Cite book|last=Mackay|first=Christopher S|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/165407940|title=Ancient Rome: a military and political history|date=2007|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-71149-4|edition=1st|location=Cambridge|oclc=165407940|page=129}}</ref> The use of force to suppress reform also suggested that the republic itself was temperamentally unsuited for producing the types of economic reforms wanted or hypothetically needed, as in Gracchus' framing, by the people.{{sfn|Flower|2010|p=84}} |
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===Aftermath=== |
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In terms of periodisation, the death of Tiberius Gracchus in 133 BC was viewed, then and now, as the start of a new period in the Roman republic, one in which political violence was normalised.{{sfn|Flower|2010|p=19}}{{sfn|Flower|2010|p=82}} |
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The emergence of new forces of urban factions, rural voters, and others, engaging in continued conflict with each other for their own interests, meant that the problem of effective governance awaited resolution. The reforms of the Gracchi had come to an end by violence; and this provided a brutal precedent that would be followed by many future rulers of Rome.<ref>{{cite book|last=Bauer|first=Susan|title=The History of the Ancient World|url=https://archive.org/details/historyofancient00baue|url-access=registration|date=2007}}</ref> |
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==Notes== |
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Cicero remarked as much in saying "the death of Tiberius Gracchus, and even before that the whole rationale behind his tribunate, divided a united people into two distinct groups" (though Beard also warns against this as a "rhetorical oversimplification": "the idea there had been a calm consensus at Rome between rich and poor until [133 BC] is at best a nostalgic fiction").{{sfn|Beard|2015|pp=226-7}} |
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{{noteslist}} |
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==References== |
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In ''The Cambridge Companion to the Roman Republic'', Jürgen von Ungern-Sternberg writes: |
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{{reflist|30em}} |
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==Further reading== |
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{{quote|It was Tiberius' assassination that made the year 133 BC a turning ponit in Roman history and the beginning of the crisis of the Roman Republic.{{sfn|von Ungern-Sternberg|2014|p=81}}}} |
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{{refbegin}} |
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*{{cite book|last=Badian|first=E.|title=Foreign Clientelae, 264–270 BC|year=1984|publisher=Oxford University Press|location=New York}} |
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== References == |
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*{{cite book|last=Bernstein|first=Alvin H.|title=Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus : tradition and apostasy|year=1978|publisher=Cornell University Press|location=Ithaca|isbn=978-0-8014-1078-9|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/tiberiussemproni0000bern}} |
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{{reflist|15em}} |
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*{{cite book|last=Boren|first=Henry C.|title=The Gracchi|url=https://archive.org/details/gracchi00bore|url-access=registration|year=1969|publisher=Twayne|location=New York}} |
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*{{cite book|last=DeLeon|first=Daniel|title="The Warning of the Gracchi," p. 42 in Two Pages From Roman History|url=https://www.marxists.org/archive/deleon/pdf/1902/two_pages.pdf|year=1902|publisher=New York Labor News|location=New York}} |
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== Sources == |
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*{{cite book|last=Earl|first=Donald C.|title=Tiberius Gracchus : a study in politics|year=1963|publisher=Latomus|location=Bruxelles-Berchem}} |
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{{refbegin|30em}} |
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*{{cite book|last=Oman|first=Charles|title=Seven Roman statesmen of the later republic : the Gracchi, Sulla, Crassus, Cato, Pompey, Caesar|year=1903|publisher=Longmans, Green, and Co|location=New York|edition=3rd|ol=24152141M}} |
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* {{Cite encyclopedia |last=Badian |first=Ernst |title=Gracchus, Gaius (Gaius Sempronius Gracchus) |encyclopedia=The Oxford companion to classical civilization|date=2014|editor-first1=Simon |editor-last1=Hornblower |editor-first2=Antony |editor-last2=Spawforth |editor-first3=Esther |editor-last3=Eidinow |isbn=978-0-19-177848-3 |edition=2nd| location=New York |publisher=Oxford University Press |oclc=900444999 }} |
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*{{cite book|last=Plutarch|title=Plutarch's Lives|year=1926|publisher=Harvard University Press|location=Cambridge, MA|others=Bernadotte Perrin, trans}} |
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* {{Cite book|last=Beard|first=Mary|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/902661394|title=SPQR: a history of ancient Rome |year=2015|isbn=978-0-87140-423-7|edition=1st |location=New York|oclc=902661394 |publisher=WW Norton and Company}} |
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* |
*{{cite book|last=Richardson|first=Keith|title=Daggers in the Forum|year=1976|publisher=Cassell|location=London|isbn=978-0-304-29540-1}} |
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*{{cite book|last=Riddle|first=John M.|title=Tiberius Gracchus: destroyer or reformer of the Republic?|url=https://archive.org/details/tiberiusgracchus00ridd|url-access=registration|year=1970|publisher=Heath|location=Lexington, MA}} |
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* {{cite book |last=Broughton |first=Thomas Robert Shannon |year=1952 |title=The magistrates of the Roman republic |location=New York |publisher=American Philological Association |author-link=Thomas Robert Shannon Broughton |volume=2}} |
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* |
*{{cite book|last=Scullard|first=H.H.|title=From the Gracchi to Nero : a history of Rome 133 BC to AD 68|orig-year=1959|year=2010|publisher=Routledge|location=London|isbn=978-0-415-58488-3}} |
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*{{cite book|editor-last=Stockton|editor-first=David|title=From The Gracchi To Sulla : sources for Roman history, 133-80B.C.|year=1985|publisher=London Association of Classical Teachers|location=Harrow|isbn=978-0-903625-16-6}} |
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* {{Cite book|last=Flower|first=Harriet I.|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/301798480|title=Roman republics|date=2010|publisher=Princeton University Press|isbn=978-0-691-14043-8|location=Princeton|oclc=301798480}} |
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* |
*{{cite book|last=Stockton|first=David|title=The Gracchi|year=1979|publisher=Clarendon Press|location=Oxford|isbn=978-0-19-872104-8}} |
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* {{Cite book|last=Goldsworthy|first=Adrian |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/936322646|title=In the name of Rome: the men who won the Roman Empire|date=2016|isbn=978-0-300-22183-1|publisher=Yale University Press|location=New Haven|oclc=936322646 |orig-date=2003}} |
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* {{Cite journal|last=Rich|first=J. W.|date=1983|title=The Supposed Roman Manpower Shortage of the Later Second Century B.C.|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/4435854|journal=Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte|volume=32|issue=3|pages=287–331|issn=0018-2311}} |
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* {{Cite book|last=Roselaar|first=Saskia T.|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/520714519|title=Public land in the Roman Republic : a social and economic history of ager publicus in Italy, 396-89 BC|date=2010|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-957723-1|location=Oxford|oclc=520714519}} |
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* {{Cite book|last=von Ungern-Sternberg|first=Jurgen|title=The Cambridge Companion to the Roman Republic|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=2014|isbn=978-1-107-66942-0|editor-last=Flower|editor-first=Harriet|edition=2nd |chapter=The Crisis of the Republic}} |
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{{refend}} |
{{refend}} |
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*[https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Appian/Civil_Wars/1*.html#18 Translation of Book 1 of ''The Civil Wars''] by [[Appian]] |
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*[https://web.archive.org/web/20111005103705/http://www.third-millennium-library.com/readinghall/GalleryofHistory/Roman_People/Tiberius_Gracchus/Door.html Tiberius Gracchus (168–133 BCE) by Hugh Last (BTM format)] |
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*[https://web.archive.org/web/20130502231817/http://cristoraul.com/ENGLISH/readinghall/GalleryofHistory/Gracci-Marius-Sulla/GMS_DOOR.htm T Gracchi, Marius and Sulla by A. H. Beesly (BTM format)] |
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[[Category:2nd-century BC Romans]] |
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[[Category:Populism]] |
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[[Category:Proto-socialists]] |
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[[Category:Characters in Book VI of the Aeneid]] |
Revision as of 22:51, 17 February 2022
The Gracchi brothers, Tiberius and Gaius, were Romans who both served as tribunes of the plebs between 133 and 121 BC. They attempted to redistribute the occupation of the ager publicus— the public land hitherto controlled principally by aristocrats—to the urban poor and veterans, in addition to other social and constitutional reforms. After achieving some early success, both were assassinated by the Optimates, the conservative faction in the senate that opposed these reforms.
Early life
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The brothers were born to a plebeian branch of the old and noble Sempronia family. Their father was the elderly Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus who was tribune of the plebs, praetor, consul, and censor. Their mother was Cornelia, daughter of Scipio Africanus, himself considered a hero by the Roman people for his part in the war against Carthage. Their parents had 12 children, but only one daughter—who later married Scipio Aemilianus—and two sons, Tiberius and Gaius, survived childhood.[1]
After the boys' father died while they were young, responsibility for their education fell to their mother. Cornelia ensured that the brothers had the best available Greek tutors, teaching them oratory and political science. The brothers were also well trained in martial pursuits; in horsemanship and combat they outshone all their peers. The older brother Tiberius was elected an augur at only 16 – according to the historian J. C. Stobart, had he taken the easy path rather than the cause of radical reform, he would have been clearly destined for consulship. Tiberius was the most distinguished young officer in the Third Punic War, Rome's last campaign against Carthage. He was the first to scale Carthage's walls; before that he saved an army of 20,000 men by skilled diplomacy. As the boys grew up, they developed strong connections with the ruling elite.[1]
Gracchi reforms
Background
Central to the Gracchi reforms was an attempt to address economic distress and its military consequences. Much public land (ager publicus) had been divided among large landholders and speculators who further expanded their estates by driving peasants off their farms. While their old lands were being worked by slaves, the peasants were often forced into idleness in Rome where they had to subsist on handouts due to a scarcity of paid work. They could not legally join the army because they did not meet the property qualification; and this, together with the lack of public land to give in exchange for military service and the mutinies in the Numantine War, caused recruitment problems and troop shortages.
The Gracchi aimed to address these problems by reclaiming lands from wealthy members of the senatorial class that could then be granted to soldiers; by restoring land to displaced peasants; by providing subsidized grain for the needy and by having the Republic pay for the clothing of its poorest soldiers.[2]
Reforms of Tiberius Gracchus
Tiberius was elected to the office of Tribune of the Plebs in 133 BC. He immediately began pushing for a programme of land reform, partly by invoking the 240-year-old Sextian-Licinian law that limited the amount of land that could be owned by a single individual. Using the powers of Lex Hortensia, Tiberius established a commission to oversee the redistribution of land holdings from the rich to the unlanded urban poor. The commission consisted of himself, his father-in-law and his brother Gaius.[1]
Even liberal senators were agitated by the proposed changes, fearing their own lands would be confiscated. Senators arranged for other tribunes to oppose the reforms. Tiberius then appealed to the people, and argued that a tribune who opposes the will of the people in favour of the rich is not a true tribune. The senators were left with only one constitutional response – to threaten prosecution after Tiberius's term as a tribune ended. This meant Tiberius had to stand for a second term.[1]
The senators obstructed his re-election. They also gathered an ad hoc[a] force, with several of them personally marching to the Forum, and had Tiberius and some 300 of his supporters clubbed to death. This was the first open bloodshed in Roman politics in nearly four centuries.[3]
Tiberius's land reform commission continued distributing lands, albeit much more slowly than Tiberius had envisaged, as Senators were able to eliminate more of the commission's supporters by legal means.
Reforms of Gaius Gracchus
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Ten years later, in 123 BC, Gaius took the same office as his brother, as a Tribune of the Plebs. Gaius was more practically minded than Tiberius and consequently was considered more dangerous by the senatorial class. He gained support from the agrarian poor by reviving the land reform programme and from the urban poor with various popular measures. He also sought support from the second estate, those equestrians who had not ascended to become senators.
Many equestrians were publicans, in charge of tax collecting in the Roman province of Asia (located in western Anatolia), and of contracting for construction projects. The equestrian class would get to control a court that tried senators for misconduct in provincial administration. In effect, the equestrians replaced senators already serving at the court. Thus, Gaius became an opponent of senatorial influence. Other reforms implemented by Gaius included fixing prices on grain for the urban population and granting improvements in citizenship for Latins and others outside the city of Rome.
With this broad coalition of supporters, Gaius held his office for two years and had much of his prepared legislation passed. This included winning an unconstitutional re-election to the one-year office of Tribune.[2] However Gaius's plans to extend rights to non-Roman Italians were eventually vetoed by another Tribune. A substantial proportion of the Roman poor, protective of their privileged Roman citizenship, turned against Gaius.[1] With Gaius's support from the people weakened, the consul Lucius Opimius was able to crush the Gracchan movement by force. A mob was raised to assassinate Gaius. Knowing his death was imminent, he committed suicide on the Aventine Hill in 121 BC. All of his reforms were undermined except for the grain laws. Three thousand supporters were subsequently arrested and put to death in the proscriptions that followed.
Assessment and reasons for failure
According to the classicist J. C. Stobart, Tiberius's Greek education had caused him to overestimate the reliability of the people as a power base, causing him to overplay his hand. In Rome, even when led by a bold Tribune, the people enjoyed much less influence than at the height of the Athenian democracy. Another problem for Gaius's aims was that the Roman constitution, specifically the Tribal Assembly, was designed to prevent any one individual governing for a sustained period of time – and there were several other checks and balances to prevent power being concentrated on any one person. Stobart adds that another reason for the failure was the Gracchi's idealism: they were deaf to the baser notes of human nature and failed to recognize how corrupt and selfish all sections of Roman society had become.[1]
According to Oswald Spengler, the characteristic mistake of the Gracchan age was to believe in the possibility of the reversibility of history,[4] a form of idealism which according to Spengler was at that time shared by both sides of the political spectrum. For example, Cato had sought to turn back the clock to the time of Cincinnatus and restore virtue by a return to austerity.[1]
The philosopher Simone Weil ranked the conduct of the Gracchi second out of all the known cases of good-hearted conduct recorded by history for classical Rome, ahead of the Scipios and Virgil.[5][b]
Historian Michael Crawford attributes the disappearance of much of Tiberius Gracchus' support to the reduced level of citizen participation due to dispersal far from Rome, and sees his tribunate as marking a step in the Hellenization of the Roman aristocracy. Crawford asserts that Gaius Gracchus' extortion law shifted the balance of power in Rome and that the Gracchi made available a new political armoury which the oligarchy subsequently sought to exploit.[6]
Aftermath
The emergence of new forces of urban factions, rural voters, and others, engaging in continued conflict with each other for their own interests, meant that the problem of effective governance awaited resolution. The reforms of the Gracchi had come to an end by violence; and this provided a brutal precedent that would be followed by many future rulers of Rome.[7]
Notes
- ^ Latin: "for this purpose; literally "towards this" – the force being assembled for the specific purpose of deposing Tiberius as a tribune.
- ^ Weil gives first ranking to Gaius Plotius Plancus and his slaves. During the proscriptions of the Second Triumvirate, the slaves endured torture so as to protect their master, the master seeing this came out of hiding to spare his slaves further pain and was executed.
References
- ^ a b c d e f g Stobart, J.C. (1978) [1964]. "III". In Maguinness, W.S; Scullard, H.H. (eds.). The Grandeur That was Rome (4th ed.). Book Club Associates. pp. 75–82.
- ^ a b Tom Holland (2004). Rubicon: The Last Years of the Roman Republic. Abacus. pp. 28–30. ISBN 9780349115634.
- ^ Nigel Rodgers, Hazel Dodge (2005). Rome: The Greatest Empire. Southwater. p. 24. ISBN 978-1-84476-150-0.
- ^ Spengler, Oswald (1922). The Decline of the West(An abridged edition). Vintage Books, 2006. p. 384. ISBN 978-1-4000-9700-5.
- ^ Simone Weil (2002). The Need for Roots. Routledge. p. 228. ISBN 978-0-415-27102-8.
- ^ Crawford, Michael (1992). The Roman Republic (2nd ed.). London: Fontana. pp. 110–111, 121–123. ISBN 9780006862505.
- ^ Bauer, Susan (2007). The History of the Ancient World.
Further reading
- Badian, E. (1984). Foreign Clientelae, 264–270 BC. New York: Oxford University Press.
- Bernstein, Alvin H. (1978). Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus : tradition and apostasy. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. ISBN 978-0-8014-1078-9.
- Boren, Henry C. (1969). The Gracchi. New York: Twayne.
- DeLeon, Daniel (1902). "The Warning of the Gracchi," p. 42 in Two Pages From Roman History (PDF). New York: New York Labor News.
- Earl, Donald C. (1963). Tiberius Gracchus : a study in politics. Bruxelles-Berchem: Latomus.
- Oman, Charles (1903). Seven Roman statesmen of the later republic : the Gracchi, Sulla, Crassus, Cato, Pompey, Caesar (3rd ed.). New York: Longmans, Green, and Co. OL 24152141M.
- Plutarch (1926). Plutarch's Lives. Bernadotte Perrin, trans. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
- Richardson, Keith (1976). Daggers in the Forum. London: Cassell. ISBN 978-0-304-29540-1.
- Riddle, John M. (1970). Tiberius Gracchus: destroyer or reformer of the Republic?. Lexington, MA: Heath.
- Scullard, H.H. (2010) [1959]. From the Gracchi to Nero : a history of Rome 133 BC to AD 68. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-58488-3.
- Stockton, David, ed. (1985). From The Gracchi To Sulla : sources for Roman history, 133-80B.C. Harrow: London Association of Classical Teachers. ISBN 978-0-903625-16-6.
- Stockton, David (1979). The Gracchi. Oxford: Clarendon Press. ISBN 978-0-19-872104-8.