Chapter XV: The Gracchi and Their Reforms (2)

(1) Foremost in the first class we may place a bill for renewing and extending the agrarian law of his brother, which was coupled with a measure for planting new colonies in divers parts of Italy, and even in the provinces. The execution of this law was deferred till the next year.

(2) The second Sempronian law was the famous measure by which the state undertook to furnish corn at a low price to all Roman citizens. It provided that any one possessing the Roman franchise should be allowed to purchase grain from public stores at 6⅓ asses the modius, or about twenty-five asses the bushel; the losses being borne by the treasury.

Public measures for distributing corn in times of scarcity had long been familiar to Roman statesmen, and individuals had more than once sought popularity by doles to the poor. But now, for the first time, was a right established by law. The necessary results of such a measure must have been, and were, very fatal. Fifty years later, it was found necessary to limit the quantity sold to five modii (1¼ bushels) a month for each person; and forty thousand citizens were habitual purchasers. Successively demagogues reduced the price, till the profligate Clodius enacted that these 1¼ bushels should be given away without any payment. The dictator Cæsar found no fewer than 320,000 citizens in the monthly receipt of this dole. He reduced the number to 150,000, and Augustus fixed it at a maximum of 200,000 souls. Such was the mass of paupers saddled upon the imperial government by the unwise law of Gracchus.[79]

We now pass on to the measures which aimed at depriving the senate of the great administrative power which of late years it had engrossed.

(1) The first of these touched their judicial power. It has been mentioned that by the famous Calpurnian law (149 B.C.) all provincial magistrates accused of corrupt dealings in their government were to be tried before the prætor peregrinus as presiding judge, and a jury of senators. This was the first regular and permanent court of justice established at Rome. The principle of the Calpurnian law was gradually extended to other grave offences, and in all the superior courts the juries were composed of senators.

These courts had given little satisfaction. In all important cases of corruption, especially such as occurred in the provinces, the offenders were themselves senators. Some of the judges had been guilty of like offences, others hoped for opportunities of committing like offences; extortion was looked upon as a venial crime; prosecutions became a trial of party strength, and the culprit was usually absolved.

Gracchus now took the judicial power altogether out of the hands of the senate, and transferred it to a body of three hundred persons, to be chosen periodically from all citizens who possessed the equestrian rate of property. By this measure he smote the senate with a two-edged sword. For not only did he deprive it of the means of shielding its own members, but he also gave a political constitution to a rival order. The equestrian order, as a political body, entirely distinct from a mere military class, now first received distinct recognition.

It is doubtful whether this measure of reform was followed by the good effects intended by Gracchus. If the governors of provinces were senators, the farmers of the taxes were equites. The new juries had their personal reasons for acquitting corrupt magistrates; for without the countenance of these magistrates they could not demand money from the provincials beyond what was strictly legal. The constitution of these juries formed a chief ground of political contest for the next fifty years.

(2) Another measure which fettered the power and patronage of the senate was the Sempronian law for the assignment of the consular provinces. Hitherto the senate had refrained from determining these provinces till after the elections, and they thus had a ready way of marking displeasure by allotting unprofitable governments to consuls whom they disliked. But Gracchus now ordained that the two consular provinces should be fixed before the elections, and that the new consuls, immediately upon their election, should settle between themselves what provinces each was to administer, either by lot or by agreement (_sortitio_ or _comparatio_). It was a wise and equitable provision, which remained in force as long as the republic lasted.

(3) A great blow was given to senatorial power by a measure for improving the roads of Italy. Public works of all kinds had hitherto been left to the censors, subject to the approval of the senate. Gracchus now transferred the business to the tribunes.

This account of the chief Sempronian laws shows the spirit which animated Gracchus. It is plain that his main purpose was to diminish the increased and increasing power of the senate. It was no doubt a confusion between the purposes and the results of the Sempronian legislation that swelled the cry against Gracchus in after-times. It is clear, however, that he had no chance of amending the corrupt government of the senatorial oligarchy, unless he first weakened their power; and if he fancied that administrative functions might safely be controlled by a large and fluctuating popular assembly, something may be forgiven to political inexperience. Representative bodies are a modern invention, and the wisest of the ancients found no halting-place between aristocracy and democracy. Gracchus was not without misgivings as to the effects of his legislation. But it was too late to draw back, and his zeal was quickened by the return of Fulvius Flaccus from Gaul. By his measures Gracchus had so won all suffrages, that he and his friend Flaccus were absolute masters of the comitia. Gracchus told the people he had a favour to ask; he proposed as candidate for the consulship C. Fannius, an old comrade of his brother. Fannius was elected as a matter of course, to the rejection of L. Opimius, the senatorial candidate.

[Sidenote: [123-121 B.C.]]

The tribunician elections followed. Flaccus, though he had been consul, appeared as candidate for an office that had been raised by the Gracchi to sovereign power. But Gracchus was not by his side; for it had been made illegal that the same man should be re-elected tribune. However, there were not candidates enough for the ten places; and the people, exercising the absolute right of choice which in this contingency was allowed, re-elected Gracchus by a unanimous vote.[80] Not more than seven months of his first year’s tribunate were over, and he was secure of power for the next seventeen months at least. He now put forth all the tremendous power of the office. The senate sat powerless, and Caius Gracchus became for a time the virtual sovereign of the empire.

Immediately on re-election, Gracchus came forward with a bill for extending the Roman franchise, certainly to the citizens of all Latin colonies, probably to all free Italian communities. Here we recognise the hand of Flaccus, who had in his consulship raised this momentous question, and resumed the project on the first opportunity after his return.

There can be no doubt that some change in this direction was necessary. The admission of the Latins and Italians to full citizenship would infuse a quantity of new blood into the decaying frame of the Roman people; and, by extending to all Italians the benefits of the agrarian law, there was really a good hope of reviving that hardy race of yeomen who were regretted by all Roman statesmen. Scipio had induced the senate for a moment to take up this cause; but after the revolt of Fregellæ, all thoughts of an extension of the franchise had been dropped. The difficulty was how to favour the Italians without provoking the Roman tribesmen. It is manifest that the project was still unpopular in the Forum, for Gracchus laboured to show that the Roman people and the Italians had one grievance in common--namely, the tyranny of the senatorial oligarchy. “The other day,” he told them, “the magistrates of Teanum had been stripped naked and scourged, because the consul’s lady complained that the public baths there had not been properly cleaned for her use. How great is the insolence of the young nobles, a single example would show. One of them was travelling through Apulia in a litter, and a countryman, meeting the bearers, asked whether they had got a dead man inside. For this word, the young lord ordered the poor man to be beaten to death with the cords of the litter.”

The chiefs of the senate perceived that the proposal to enfranchise the Italians had sapped his popularity at Rome. The consul Fannius, notwithstanding the part Gracchus had taken in his election, vehemently opposed the measure. He declared that he would again bring forward the alien act of Pennus, and expel all foreigners from Rome. The senate soon after ventured a step farther. One of the new tribunes, M. Livius Drusus by name, a young man of high birth, rich, eloquent, ambitious and determined, undertook to thwart the progress of his great colleague, and he put a veto on the law for enfranchising the Latins.

We must now return to the agrarian law. In furtherance of this law, Caius proposed to plant colonies in divers parts of Italy; Capua and Tarentum were fixed upon as the first of these new settlements: but here he showed no democratic tendencies; for no allotments were given to citizens, however poor, unless their character was respectable; and only a small number of colonists were to be sent to each place.

Drusus was not slow to take advantage of these unpopular provisions. He resolved to outbid Gracchus, and the agent of the nobility became a demagogue. He proposed to found no fewer than twelve colonies at once, each to consist of three thousand families, to be chosen without respect to character. All these colonists were to hold their allotments rent-free. Drusus openly avowed that he made these propositions in favour of the poor on the part of the senate, and declared in significant terms that he would not himself accept any part in the honour or emolument to be derived from the office of founding these colonies; whereas Gracchus had himself superintended all the public works which he had originated.

At this time, plans were on foot for extending the Italian system of colonisation to the provinces. In this very year, C. Sextius Calvinus, who had succeeded Flaccus as proconsul in Gaul, founded the town of Aquæ Sextiæ, still called Aix, in southern Gaul; four years later Narbo Martius, or Narbonne, was planted farther westward in the same country. But Gracchus himself was the first who had proposed to plant a colony beyond the Italian peninsula; and the place he fixed upon was Carthage. The plan was taken up by the senate. The new colony was to be called Junonia, and it was dexterously contrived that Gracchus himself, with Flaccus and another, should be the commissioners for distributing the lands and marking the limits of the settlement. In this way the formidable tribune and his most active supporter were obliged to quit Rome just when their presence was most needed to revive their drooping popularity.

The commissioners applied themselves to their task with so much assiduity that they returned to Rome in time for the consular elections. The ruthless Opimius was again candidate, and Gracchus exerted himself to the utmost to reorganise his party, but in vain. Popular feeling was strongly marked by the triumphant election of Opimius to the consulship, in company with Q. Fabius, son of Scipio’s elder brother, a man personally hostile to Gracchus.

The tribunician elections followed, and were equally significant of the temper of the people. Neither Gracchus nor Flaccus was re-elected. The remainder of the year indeed passed by quietly. But at the beginning of the year 121 B.C. Opimius became consul, and it was evident that danger was at hand.

[Sidenote: [121 B.C.]]

Gracchus and his friends prudently refrained from all offensive steps; but as he would give no grounds for proceeding against him, Opimius resolved to make them. News arrived from the new colony at Carthage to the effect that it had been planted on the ground cursed by Scipio; the wrath of the gods had been shown by the fact that wolves had torn down the boundary-posts. The senate met, and on the motion of Opimius ordered the tribunes to call a meeting of the tribes upon the Capitol, to rescind the law for colonising Carthage. The place was ominous, for there Ti. Gracchus had been slain.

On the appointed morning the impetuous Flaccus appeared with a large retinue armed with daggers. Gracchus followed with a considerable suite. Flaccus spoke vehemently to the tribes, while Gracchus stood aloof in the portico of the temple, in which Opimius was offering sacrifice. Here he was encountered by a retainer of the consul, who insolently pushed Gracchus aside, crying, “Make way for honest men!” Gracchus cast an angry look upon the man, who presently fell stabbed to the heart by an unknown hand. A cry of murder was raised, and the crowd fled in alarm to the Forum. Gracchus retired to his house, regretting the rash imprudence of his followers. Meantime the body of the slain man was paraded before the eyes of the terrified people. The senate armed the consuls with a decree, by which Gracchus was proclaimed a public enemy, and Opimius took station during the night in the temple of Castor, by the side of the Forum. He summoned the senate to a special sitting early next morning, and also sent to all on whom he could rely, desiring them to come armed to the Forum, and each man to bring two armed slaves. With this force he occupied the Capitol at daybreak, and prepared to execute the will of the senate.

Gracchus was irresolute; but Flaccus summoned to his house all who were ready to resist senatorial authority. Here he armed them with the Celtic weapons which he had brought home from his Gallic campaigns, and kept up their courage by deep potations of wine. Early in the morning he occupied a strong position on the Aventine, where he was joined by Gracchus, who sighed over the necessity of using force.

When the senate met, the popular leaders were summoned to attend in their places, and explain the proceedings of the previous day. They answered by proclaiming liberty to all slaves who should join them. Nothing could more show the desperate aspect which the struggle had assumed. Yet before blood flowed, Gracchus insisted on trying negotiation, and Q. Flaccus, a handsome youth of eighteen, son of the ex-tribune, was sent. But already the senate had invested Opimius with dictatorial power. The only answer the consul returned was that the leaders must appear before the senate, and explain their conduct; and when young Quintus came back with a fresh message, Opimius arrested him. He now set a price on the heads of Gracchus and Fulvius Flaccus, and ordered an immediate attack upon the Aventine. Under arms appeared the noblest men at Rome, P. Lentulus, chief of the senate, old Metellus Macedonicus, and many others. For their leader they chose not the consul, but L. Junius Brutus, the Spanish conqueror. The attack was opened under cover of a shower of arrows from a body of Cretan bowmen. Little or no resistance was offered. Flaccus fled with his eldest son. Gracchus retired into the temple of Diana, where he was hardly prevented from putting an end to his own life by two faithful friends, the knights Pomponius and Lætorius. Urged by them to flee, he threw himself on his knees, and prayed the goddess to punish the unworthy people of Rome by everlasting slavery. All three then took their way down to the Porta Trigemina, hotly pursued. Pomponius made a stand in the gateway to cover his friend’s escape across the Sublician bridge, and fell pierced with many wounds. Lætorius showed no less devotion by gallantly turning to bay upon the bridge till he knew that Gracchus was safe over, when he sprang into the river and perished. Gracchus with a single slave reached the Grove of the Furies, and here both were found dead. The faithful slave had first held the sword to his master’s heart, and then fallen upon it himself. One Septimuleius cut off the head of Gracchus, and was rewarded by the fierce Opimius with its weight in gold.[81]

Flaccus and his eldest son had found shelter in the bath-house of a friend. The consul’s myrmidons tracked them, and threatened to set fire to the house. The owner, alarmed for his property, allowed another to disclose the secret, though he did not choose to speak the word himself. They were dragged forth and slain with every mark of indignity. The handsome youth who had been arrested before the assault commenced was allowed to put himself to death.

Great numbers of the partisans of Gracchus were thrown into prison, and put to death without trial. The stream of Tiber flowed thick with corpses. The inconstant mob plundered their houses without molestation. The widows and friends of the slain were forbidden by consular edict to wear mourning. When the bloody work was done, the city was purged by a formal lustration; and the consul, by order of the senate, laid the foundations of a temple of Concord. Under the inscription placed on it by Opimius was found next morning another to this effect:

“Workers of Discord raise a shrine to Concord.”

But none dared openly to avow themselves friends of the Gracchi. The son of Caius died soon after; and except Sempronia, the widow of Scipio, none of the race remained. Cornelia retired to Misenum, where she lived for many years, not so much sorrowing for the loss of her sons as dwelling with delight on the memory of their acts. Many visited her in retirement, chiefly learned Greeks, to hear the story of the bold reformers. Calmly and loftily she told the tale, declaring that her sons had found worthy graves in the temples of the gods. In after days her statue in bronze was set up in the Forum, with the Greek sandals on her feet which had been made a reproach to her illustrious father. Beneath it were placed these words only: To Cornelia, the Mother of the Gracchi.[b]

To quote again from Beesly’s[c] acute summing-up of Caius Gracchus.

“The man who originates is always so far greater than the man who imitates, and Caius only followed where his brother led. The very dream which Caius told to the people shows that his brother’s spell was still on him, and his telling it, together with his impetuous oratory and his avowed fatalism, militates against the theory that Tiberius was swayed by impulse and sentiment, and he by calculation and reason. But no doubt he profited by experience of the past. He had learned how to bide his time, and to think generosity wasted on the murderous crew whom he had sworn to punish. Pure in life, perfectly prepared for a death to which he considered himself foredoomed, glowing with one fervent passion, he took up his brother’s cause with a double portion of his brother’s spirit, because he had thought more before action, because he had greater natural eloquence, and because being forewarned he was forearmed.

“In spite of the labours of recent historians, the legislation of Caius Gracchus is still hard to understand. Where the original authorities contradict each other, as they often do, probable conjecture is the most which can be attained, and no attempt will be made here to specify what were the measures of the first tribunate of Caius and what of the second. The general scope and tendency of his legislation is clear enough. It was to overthrow the senatorial government, and in the new government to give the chief share of the executive power to the mercantile class, and the chief share of the legislative power to Italians. These were his immediate aims. Probably he meant to keep all the strings he thus set in motion in his own hands, so as to be practically monarch of Rome. But whether he definitely conceived the idea of monarchy, and, looking beyond his own requirements, pictured to himself a successor at some future time inheriting the authority which he had established, no one can say. In such vast schemes there must have been much that was merely tentative. But had he lived and retained his influence we may be sure that the Empire would have been established a century earlier than it was.”[c]

George Long[d] says: “We may acquit the Gracchi of the Roman vice of greediness, but not of ill-directed ambition. Their object was not to enrich themselves, but to destroy the power of the Optimates by rousing against them the people, and using their votes to make a revolution. But this popular agitation increased an evil which already existed. The Gracchi used the popular vote for their purpose, as the nobles had long used it for their ends. Under the name of the public interest men on both sides sought their own.”

FOOTNOTES

[74] [The number of sons qualified to hold public property was two.]

[75] [George Long[d] defends their authenticity, saying: “The critics whose eyes are so sharp that they cannot see what is before them and see what is not, tell us that these fragments are rhetorical inventions. Now Gracchus’ speeches were read in Cicero’s time and later; and it is as reasonable to suppose that Appian and Plutarch used these speeches, as to suppose that they invented speeches or copied from those who invented them. The speeches are like genuine stuff.”]

[76] [The difficulty in the way of the first alternative here suggested is that in all probability Octavius would have vetoed any proposal for reform. The second alternative was impracticable because Tiberius was constitutionally ineligible to re-election. It is doubtful whether any constitutional means of reform existed.]

[77] Piso, the other consul, was employed in extinguishing the Slave War in Sicily.

[78] [George Long[d] doubts this, saying that Caius was still in Spain.]

[79] [It is now generally agreed that various classes of poor people should be supported by the government; the question is whether the Romans were wise in supporting so many and in such a way.]

[80] [Appian,[g] the authority for this matter, more probably means that before the tribuneship of Caius a law had been passed permitting the re-election of a tribune in case of a lack of candidates.]

[81] [“This,” says Long,[d] “is the first instance in Roman history of head-money being offered and paid, but it was not the last.”]

(In the British Museum)]