From the Gracchi to Nero: A History of Rome from 133 B.C. to A.D. 68 (9 page)

This unjustified recourse to force by part of the Senate was the result of much provocation by Tiberius. He had disregarded their customary prior right of discussing legislation, and he had interfered in finance and foreign affairs which he claimed should be handled by the People.
^16a
Apart from any slight to their order, many senators much have had genuine misgivings about such conduct. True the Roman People was theoretically sovereign, but the Roman People could not be equated with the urban mob that thronged the assembly in Rome. This was becoming increasingly irresponsible and unrepresentative of the needs of the people as a whole. Further, since it clearly lacked the knowledge or skill to take over from the Senate the transacting of the complicated
business of finance and foreign relations, Tiberius was unwise to encourage it to intervene on specific points. In thus transgressing traditional observance, he had not broken the law, but he had shown undue hastiness and folly.

His attitude to the tribunate was even more disquieting. Neither the deposition of Octavius nor his own attempt at re-election may have been formally illegal, but these acts must have suggested to the prudent some possibilities which may have escaped the consideration of the over-zealous reformer. The original function of the tribunes had been to protect the people against patrician domination, but this need had long passed and they had become useful agents for the nobility, often using their veto to check the popular assemblies. In urging the People to depose Octavius while he was still in office, on the ground perhaps that he was blocking the People’s wishes, Tiberius was threatening to turn the tribunes into agents of the People’s will, whereas constitutionally legislation could only result when magistrates co-operated with the People. To turn the tribunes into a mouthpiece of the People and to make their veto capable of being swept aside, would be to give the Concilium Plebis greater responsibility than it could properly wield. When, in addition, Tiberius sought reelection, the possibility of prolonged tribunates would open the way to demagogy: the result would not be democracy on the Athenian pattern, but mob-rule or dictatorship. Tiberius may not have been aware of the latent implications of his actions, but he does seem to have sought sufficient personal leadership in the interests of his land reform scheme, to render plausible, if not true, the charge of his opponents that he claimed that ‘interempto senatu omnia per plebem agi debere’. To Rome’s great loss the plebs were not capable of responding adequately to such a call. Instead, the Senate responded with force and thus set in motion the series of civil wars in which the Republic perished.

The Senate pressed home its advantage: it set up a court under the consul of 132, P. Popillius Laenas
¹⁷
and his more attractive colleague P. Rupilius, to punish more of Gracchus’ surviving supporters. Many were condemned and executed: those that escaped were banished without trial. Of Tiberius’ Greek friends Diophanes was killed and Blossius fled to join Aristonicus’ revolt in Asia (p. 33). Despite this display of strength the Senate decided that, since Nasica’s continued presence in Rome would remind men of his violation of the sacrosanctity of a tribune, he was better out of sight: he was therefore sent on a commission to Asia, where he soon died. The Senate, however, did not interfere with the working of the agrarian commission, a fact that demonstrates that its objection to Tiberius’ bill was much weaker than its dislike of
his methods. Tiberius’ place on the commission was taken by Gaius Gracchus’ father-in-law, P. Licinius Crassus, but as consul in 131 Crassus secured by intrigue a command in Asia, where he died in 130; Ap. Claudius, the other triumvir, also died. Their places were filled by M. Fulvius Flaccus and C. Papirius Carbo, who, together with Gaius Gracchus, remained in office until 122. As tribune in 131 (or 130) Carbo carried a measure to extend secret ballot (cf. p. 20) to legislative assemblies of the People and proposed one to legalize re-election to the tribunate. Scipio Aemilianus, who was back from Spain after sacking Numantia in 133, helped to defeat the proposal, though a similar measure possibly was carried soon after his death in 129.
¹⁸
The turbulence of the times was reflected during the censorship of 131, when this office was held by two plebeians for the first time in history; a disgruntled tribune tried to push the censor Q. Metellus Macedonicus over the Tarpeian Rock, from which condemned criminals were hurled. More memorable perhaps was Metellus’ speech ‘de prole augenda’, an appeal to enforce marriage and thus increase the birth-rate; he was clearly conscious that Rome’s economic difficulties required reform, though his solution was on different lines from that of Gracchus.

Meantime the commissioners were hard at work, asserting the State’s claim to the extra
ager publicus
and distributing it to new settlers.
¹⁹
But difficulties arose, especially where the interests of the Latin and Italian allies were involved. Already exasperated by Rome’s recent treatment of them, those allies who had been allowed to occupy
ager publicus
in the past would not now enjoy having to surrender any surplus they held in order to provide allotments for the unemployed from Rome, while disputes may have arisen with the commissioners over the title to borderland where land originally taken from the ally by Rome ran alongside land retained by the ally.
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To air their grievances they sought the help in Rome of Scipio Aemilianus who as a soldier knew the true value of the allied contribution to Roman life. In 129 their new patron persuaded the Senate to warn the commissioners not to deal with disputes about land held by the allies; such cases should be transferred to the consul Tuditanus, who conveniently went off to Illyricum.
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But the distribution of land went on: the census figures of 125 B.C. (about 395,000) were some 75,000 higher than those of 131 B.C., and this increase almost certainly reflects the progress of land settlement.
²²

Scipio’s championship of the allies increased his unpopularity with the urban mob who had already disapproved of his opposition to Carbo’s bill. One morning, when he was due to make a speech on the Italian question, he was found dead. His death remained an unsolved mystery. Although various people were blamed at the time or later (including Flaccus, C. Gracchus, Carbo, and even Sempronia or Cornelia), murder is not very likely; suicide is possible, but most probably he died a natural death (a heart-attack?).
²³
Rome
thus lost an upright soldier, who had exercised a moderating influence on her political and cultural life.

Many of the allies, now without their patron, began to come to Rome to agitate, but they met with a sharp rebuff: a tribune named Iunius Pennus (126) passed a law, despite the opposition of C. Gracchus, to prevent non-citizens settling in Rome and to expel those that had done so.
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But the land commissioner Fulvius Flaccus won the consulship of 125 and tried to settle the whole Italian question in a most statesmanlike manner: he proposed that all the allies should receive Roman citizenship if they wished, or alternatively those who wanted should remain independent states and receive the right of appeal against Roman magistrates. If the Romans had accepted this generous and prudent proposal they would have solved a problem which embittered political life for the next generation and led to a terrible and ‘unnecessary’ war. But the Senate was too conservative: it responded to a timely appeal from Massilia for help against the Salluvii by assigning Gaul as a province to Flaccus, who was thus compelled to abandon his proposal.
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The allies were thwarted – all but the Latin colony of Fregellae in the Liris valley (modern Arce, not far from Monte Cassino). This hill-town, hitherto an outstandingly loyal ally, revolted. The attempt, unless based on a lively hope that its lead would be followed by others, was suicidal, but it demonstrates, as does nothing else, the bitterness felt towards Rome even by her old friends. Rome reacted sharply. Fregellae was besieged and then captured through internal treachery; the city was destroyed and the inhabitants were moved down to the plain where a colony was established at Fabrateria.
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Thus a Social War was averted for another thirty-five years and the Senate had rounded a dangerous corner, just as internally it had survived the pressure of Tiberius and Flaccus. But a more powerful challenge was at hand.

Gaius Gracchus, who had served on the land commission since 133 when he was only twenty-one years old, became one of Rome’s greatest orators.
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He displayed his oratorical ability when he supported Carbo’s proposal for reelection to the tribunate, opposed Pennus’ alien-act, expressed approval of Flaccus’ measure and defended himself against criticism by the censors for leaving Sardinia, where he served as quaestor in 126, when the command of his superior officer was prolonged; he also rebutted a charge of complicity in the revolt of Fregellae. Thus he was well known to the People who readily elected him tribune for 123, as one eager to continue and develop his brother’s policy. Unlike Tiberius, who came to grief on this very issue, Gaius was easily elected to a second tribunate for 122 and thus gained a longer period in which to initiate reform. The exact order of his measures and their
assignment to 123 or 122 cannot in many cases be established, but apparently after a preliminary warning to the Senate he acted with a certain restraint and only brought up his heavy guns later.
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The Senate also showed moderation at first (unless its mildness arose from an inability to persuade any of Gaius’ colleagues in 123 to oppose him), but during 122 it used a tribune, Drusus, to undermine his position.

His first proposal was to prohibit any magistrate or tribune who had been deposed by the people from holding any further office; this would make tribunes more chary of submitting to senatorial control, and would have thrown a cloak of legitimacy over Octavius’ deposition, and in so far as it might suggest that the People could depose any magistrate who acted against their wishes it was potentially revolutionary. Since it also affected Octavius personally, Gaius was persuaded by his mother Cornelia to drop it. But he did not intend to be robbed of all revenge against Tiberius’ opponents. He carried a measure that declared illegal all courts with powers of capital punishment that were not established by the People. This was aimed at such tribunals as that set up by the Senate under Popillius to try Tiberius’ supporters. The measure was made retrospective: Popillius was impeached and driven into exile.

Gaius then turned to further economic reform. He re-enacted his brother’s agrarian bill, removing whatever limitations Aemilianus had imposed on the working of the commission.
²⁹
Since much of the land available had no doubt been distributed by this time, Gaius supplemented this bill with a plan to establish some colonies in Italy; though many of the colonists would be drawn from the very poor, some were to come from the middle classes in order to provide some capital for the promotion of industries in the colonies. Whereas the older Roman colonies had been primarily military centres and secondarily outlets for surplus population, now commercial motives were not overlooked. Two colonies were established in southern Italy, Minervia at Scolacium under the toe of Italy, and Neptunia near Tarentum; and others may have been planned. It is even possible that Gaius also thought of a colony on the site of Carthage as early as this (see below, p. 30). Stimulated partly perhaps by recent corn shortages in Africa and Sicily, he also carried a
lex frumentaria
. The State was to practice bulk-buying of corn, build warehouses to store it and then sell a monthly ration to any Roman citizen at a price slightly below the market-rate (at 6 1/3
asses
a
modius
). This would reduce the variation in price from year to year caused by good and bad harvests, and prevent private profiteering in lean years. It would also help those waiting to go to allotments or colonies or those for whom such relief could not be found. This was a novel idea at Rome, but many Greek States had been accustomed to control their own corn-trade. Later Roman moralists sharply criticized Gaius for ‘demoralizing’ the people, but unjustly: he was not responsible for
subsequent perversions of this practice into a dole and a political bribe. Other popular measures included one to construct some secondary roads in Italy which would provide employment and improve communications, and another to make conditions in the army better by enacting that the State should provide clothing and that boys under seventeen should not be enlisted.

The relative value that Gaius set upon his various reforms cannot be determined, but the question of the allies was clearly close to his heart, and he possibly proposed in 123 to extend Roman franchise to the Latins; if so, the attempt failed. To handle this burning matter successfully, he clearly would need further political support. It was therefore perhaps with this in mind that he tried to win help from the Equites, or he may merely have felt that they could usefully be given more political influence in order to form a more serious counter-weight to the Senate. Whatever his primary motive, he carried two measures which greatly benefited them: he gave them control first of the taxation of Asia, and later of the jury courts at Rome.
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He enacted that the right to collect taxes of the new province of Asia (a tithe, together with some customs and pasture dues) should be auctioned by the censors at Rome. Since the successful contractor paid a lump sum to the State, and then recovered this and his profit from collecting the taxes, only rich Equites would have sufficient capital to accept the contract. The proposal was in line with previous Roman policy, by which private individuals had been utilized in order to avoid creating a professional body of financial officials. But the measure, while helping to protect provincials from rapacious governors, gave the Equites more than a chance for further wealth: those who gained the contracts could not be prosecuted for extortion (a crime which only senators could commit), while any governor who tried to check them could, on some trumped-up charge, be brought before the
quaestio perpetua de repetundis,
the court in Rome that tried provincial governors on charges of extortion. And here, after Gaius’ second law in favour of the Equites, the jury would consist of members of that Order.

At first Gaius had probably mooted the idea of adding some 300 members of the equestrian order to the Senate and leaving the court in the hands of this enlarged Senate, but the suggestion was not accepted. Later, perhaps after the counter-attack by Drusus when the gulf between Gaius and the Senate had widened (p. 30), he sponsored a measure, which was moved probably by Acilius, to transfer the court from the Senate to the Equites.
³¹
This had very far-reaching political effects. It gave the Equites influence over senatorial provincial governors (this would have been avoided, if his first scheme had been accepted). However, if trust can be placed in Cicero’s statement that the equestrian juries for some time did not succumb to the temptations that were open to them, Gracchus’ measure may be regarded as good in so far as it gave the equestrian order a position in the State more consonant with its importance,
but bad in so far as it antagonized relations between it and the Senate and made control of the lawcourts a bone of contention for the next fifty years.

Gracchus also carried a measure ‘ne quis iudicio circumveniatur’. This has generally been regarded as a law against judicial corruption, making bribery of jurors a criminal offence and applying only to senators and not to Equites because it was passed before the court was transferred to the latter. But alternative interpretations are more probable.
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Another measure compelled the Senate, which decided to which provinces consuls should be sent (normally after their year of office in Rome), to fix the provinces before the consuls were elected instead of during their consulships. Thus the Senate could less easily reward its favourites with the best provinces, but since the provinces would now have to be allocated eighteen months in advance, the new arrangement would not make for efficiency. Gracchus may also have established some new dues (
portoria
) in Italian harbours, but, whatever his intentions, he probably did not alter the method of voting in the Comitia Centuriata.