TIBERIUS GRACCHUS
It appears that before the time of Scipio’s election to conduct the
Numantian War, it had become a prevalent opinion that some measures
were necessary to arrest the prevailing social evils. The frightful
excesses of the Servile War called attention still more strongly to the
subject; and in the year that Scipio achieved the conquest of Numantia a
leader appeared who was endowed with courage, firmness, self-confidence,
ability, eloquence, and every requisite for political success, except a
larger experience and a larger share of patience and self-control.[b] A.
H. Beesley thus vividly paints the crying evils of the Roman state:
“Everywhere Rome was failing in her duties as mistress of the civilised
world. Her own internal degeneracy was faithfully reflected in the
abnegation of her imperial duties. When in any country the small farmer
class is being squeezed off the land; when its labourers are slaves or
serfs; when huge tracts are kept waste to minister to pleasure; when the
shibboleth of art is on every man’s lips, but ideas of true beauty in
very few men’s souls; when the business sharper is the greatest man in
the city, and lords it even in the law courts; when class magistrates,
bidding for high office, deal out justice according to the rank of
the criminal; when exchanges are turned into great gambling-houses,
and senators and men of title are the chief gamblers; when, in short,
‘corruption is universal, when there is increasing audacity, increasing
greed, increasing fraud, increasing impurity, and these are fed by
increasing indulgence and ostentation; when a considerable number of
trials in the courts of law bring out the fact that the country in
general is now regarded as a prey, upon which any number of vultures,
scenting it from afar, may safely light and securely gorge themselves;
when the foul tribe is amply replenished by its congeners at home, and
foreign invaders find any number of men, bearing good names, ready to
assist them in robberies far more cruel and sweeping than those of the
footpad or burglar’--when such is the tone of society, and such the idols
before which it bends, a nation must be fast going down hill.
“A more repulsive picture can hardly be imagined. A mob, a moneyed class,
and an aristocracy almost equally worthless, hating each other, and hated
by the rest of the world; Italians bitterly jealous of Romans, and only
in better plight than the provinces beyond the sea; more miserable than
either, swarms of slaves beginning to brood revenge as a solace to their
sufferings; the land going out of cultivation; native industry swamped
by slave-grown imports; the population decreasing; the army degenerating;
wars waged as a speculation, but only against the weak; provinces
subjected to organised pillage; in the metropolis childish superstition,
wholesale luxury, and monstrous vice. The hour for reform had surely
come. Who was to be the man?”[c]
Ti. Sempronius Gracchus was son of one of the few Romans in whom public
spirit prevailed over the spirit of party. Though personally hostile to
the great Scipio, we saw him interfere between him and his foes. After
the death of Africanus, the chiefs of the party offered him the hand of
Cornelia, the only surviving daughter of the hero; and from this marriage
twelve sons and one daughter were born in rapid succession. The eldest,
Tiberius, saw the light about 166 B.C., but the father died before his
eldest son reached man’s estate, and Cornelia was left a widow with her
children. The daughter lived; but of all the twelve sons only two grew
up--Tiberius, and Caius who was nine years younger. To the education of
these precious relics Cornelia devoted all the energies of her masculine
mind. She even refused an offer to share the throne of the king of Egypt.
Her dearest task was to watch the opening capacities of her boys. Such
was her hope of their greatness that she used to say she would be known
not as the daughter of Scipio, but as the mother of the Gracchi.
According to the fashion of the day, Greek teachers were called in to
educate the boys. Blossius of Cumæ, and Diophanes a Mytilenean exile,
are mentioned as the instructors, and in later life as the friends, of
Tiberius. Scarcely had Tiberius assumed the garb of manhood when he was
elected into the college of augurs. At the banquet given to celebrate his
installation, App. Claudius, the chief of the senate, offered him his
daughter’s hand in marriage.
When the proud senator returned home, he told his wife that he had that
day betrothed their daughter. “Ah!” she cried, “she is too young; it had
been well to wait a while--unless, indeed, young Gracchus is the man.”
Soon after his marriage he accompanied Scipio to Carthage, where he was
the first to scale the walls.
The personal importance of Gracchus was strengthened by the marriage of
Scipio with his only sister. But this marriage proved unhappy. Sempronia
had no charms of person, and her temper was not good; Scipio’s austere
manners were little pleasing to a bride; nor were children born to form a
bond of union between them.
[Sidenote: [137-133 B.C.]]
It was when Gracchus was about thirty years old (137 B.C.) that he served
as quæstor in Spain. Before this, when he travelled through Etruria to
join the army, he had noted her broad lands tilled not by free yeomen
as of old, but by slaves. Soon after this the Slave War broke out. He
spoke his sentiments freely, and public opinion designated him as the
man who was to undertake the thankless office of reformer. In all places
of public resort the walls were covered with inscriptions calling on
Gracchus to vindicate the rights of all Roman citizens to a share in the
state lands. He presented himself as a candidate for the tribunate, and
was elected.
On December 10th, 134 B.C., he entered upon office. He had already
prepared men for his projected legislation by eloquent speeches, in which
he compared the present state of Italy with her olden time, deplored the
decay of her yeomen and farmers, and the lack of freemen to serve in the
legions. All his arguments pointed towards some measures for restoring
the class of small landed proprietors who were dwindling fast away.
[Sidenote: [133 B.C.]]
In a short time his plan was matured and his bill brought forward.
He proposed to revise the Licinian law of 364 B.C., by which it was
enacted that no head of a family should hold more than five hundred
jugera (nearly 320 acres) of the public land; but to render the rule
less stringent, he added that every son of the family might, on becoming
his own master, hold half that quantity in addition.[74] Whoever was in
possession of more was to give up the excess at once to the state; but
to obviate complaints of injustice, he proposed that those who gave up
possession should be entitled to a fair compensation for any improvements
they had made during the term of their possession. All public lands were
to be vested in three commissioners (_triumviri_), who were to be elected
by the tribes. Their business was to distribute the public lands to all
citizens in needy circumstances, and to prevent lands so distributed
being again absorbed into the estates of the rich land owners; the sale
of the new allotments was altogether prohibited.
The greater part of these public lands had fallen into the hands of
the rich land owners. They had held them, on payment of a small yearly
rent, for generations; and many of these persons had forgotten perhaps
that their possession could be disturbed. After the first surprise was
over, the voices of these land holders began to be heard; but as yet the
majority of the senate showed no disfavour to the law of Gracchus. The
persons interested alleged that the measure, though it pretended only
to interfere with state lands, did in fact interfere with the rights of
private property; for these lands were held on public lease and had been
made matters of purchase and sale, moneys were secured on them for the
benefit of widows and orphans, tombs had been erected on them: if this
law passed, no man’s land could be called his own.
If Gracchus had proposed a forcible and immediate resumption of all state
lands, without compensation for moneys spent on them, these arguments
would have had more weight. Rights arise by prescription; and if the
state had for a long course of time tacitly recognised a right of private
property in these lands, it would have been a manifest injustice thus
abruptly to resume possession. But the Licinian law was evidence that
the state claimed a right to interfere with the tenure of the public
lands. That the Romans felt no doubt about the right is shown by the fact
that in framing his law Tiberius was assisted by his father-in-law App.
Claudius, the chief of the senate, and by P. Mucius Scævola, consul of
the year.
It was certain that the law would be carried in all the country tribes,
because it was precisely in these tribes that the strength of Gracchus
lay, and all his arguments show that he knew it. It was to the country
people, who had lost or were afraid of losing their little farms, that
he spoke.[b] A few specimens of the fervent eloquence of Tiberius still
remain in the fragments[75] quoted in Plutarch[e] and Appian.[g] Plutarch
describes the present event as follows:
“Tiberius defending the matter, which of itself was good and just, with
such eloquence as might have justified an evil cause, was invincible;
and no man was able to argue against him to confute him, when, speaking
in the behalf of the poor citizens of Rome (the people being gathered
round about the pulpit for orations), he told them, that the wild beasts
through Italy had their dens and caves of abode, and the men that fought,
and were slain for their country, had nothing else but air and light, and
so were compelled to wander up and down with their wives and children,
having no resting-place nor house to put their heads in. And that the
captains do but mock their soldiers, when they encourage them in battle
to fight valiantly for the graves, the temples, their own houses, and
their predecessors. For, said he, of such a number of poor citizens as
there be, there cannot a man of them show any ancient house or tomb of
their ancestors, because the poor men go to the wars, and are slain for
the rich men’s pleasures and wealth; besides, they falsely call them
lords of the earth, where they have not a handful of ground that is
theirs. These and such other like words being uttered before all the
people with such vehemency and truth, so moved the common people withal,
and put them in such a rage, that there was no adversary of his able
to withstand him. Therefore, leaving to contradict and deny the law by
argument, the rich men put all their trust in Marcus Octavius, colleague
and fellow-tribune with Tiberius in office, who was a grave and wise
young man, and Tiberius’ very familiar friend. That the first time they
came to him, to oppose him against the confirmation of this law, he
prayed them to hold him excused, because Tiberius was his very friend.
But in the end, being compelled to it through the great number of the
rich men that were importunate with him, he withstood Tiberius’ law,
which was enough to overthrow it.”[e]
The morning came. The Forum was crowded with people expecting the
completion of the great measure which was to restore some share in the
broad lands of Italy to the sons of those who had won them. Strange faces
were seen everywhere: vine-dressers from Campania and the Auruncan hills,
peasants from the Sabine and Æquian valleys, farmers of valley and plain
from the Clanis to the Vulturnus.
Gracchus rose. His speech was received with loud applause by the eager
multitude. When he had ended, he turned to the clerk, and bade him read
over the words of the law before it was put to the vote. Then Octavius
stood up and forbade the man to read. Gracchus was taken by surprise.
After much debate he broke up the assembly, declaring that he would again
bring on his defeated bill upon the next regular day of meeting.
The intervening time was spent in preparing for the contest. Gracchus
retaliated upon the veto of Octavius by laying an interdict on all
public functionaries, shut up the courts of justice and the offices of
police, and put a seal upon the doors of the treasury. Further, he struck
the compensation clauses out of his bill, and now simply proposed that
the state should resume possession of all lands held by individuals in
contravention of the Licinian law.
On the day of the second assembly Gracchus appeared in the Forum
escorted by a bodyguard. Again he ordered the clerk to read the bill;
again Octavius stood forth, and barred all proceedings. A violent scene
followed, and a riot seemed inevitable, when two senators, friends of
Gracchus--one named Fulvius Flaccus--earnestly besought him to refer the
whole matter to the senate. Gracchus consented. But his late impatient
conduct had weakened whatever influence his name possessed in the great
council, and his appearance was the signal for a burst of reproaches. He
hastily left the house, and returning to the Forum gave out that on the
next day of assembly he would for the third time propose his measure; and
that, if Octavius persisted in opposition, he would move the people to
depose their unfaithful tribune.
As the day approached, Gracchus made every effort to avoid this desperate
necessity; but Octavius repelled every advance, and on the morning of the
third assembly, Gracchus rose at once and moved that Octavius should be
deprived of the trust which he had betrayed.
The country tribe, which obtained by lot the prerogative of voting
first, was called, and its suffrage was unanimous for the deposition
of Octavius; sixteen tribes followed in the same sense; the eighteenth
would give a majority of the thirty-five, and its vote would determine
the question. As this tribe came up to vote, Gracchus stopped the
proceedings, and besought Octavius not to force on the irrevocable step.
The tribune wavered; but he caught the eye of one of his rich friends,
and turned coldly from Tiberius. Then the eighteenth tribe was called,
and by its vote Octavius was in a moment stripped of his sacred office.[b]
“These acts of Tiberius Gracchus,” says Beesly, “are commonly said to
have been the beginning of revolution at Rome; and the guilt of it is
accordingly laid at his door. And there can be no doubt that he was
guilty in the sense that a man is guilty who introduces a light into some
chamber filled with explosive vapour, which the stupidity or malice of
others has suffered to accumulate. But, after all, too much is made of
this violation of constitutional forms and the sanctity of the tribunate.
The first were effete, and all regular means of renovating the republic
seemed to be closed to the despairing patriot, by stolid obstinacy
sheltering itself under the garb of law and order. The second was no
longer what it had been--the recognised refuge and defence of the poor.
The rich, as Tiberius in effect argued, had found out how to use it
also. If all men who set the example of forcible infringement of law are
criminals, Gracchus was a criminal. But in the world’s annals he sins in
good company; and when men condemn him, they should condemn Washington
also. Perhaps his failure has had most to do with his condemnation.
Success justifies, failure condemns, most revolutions in most men’s eyes.
But if ever a revolution was excusable this was; for it was carried not
by a small party for small aims, but by national acclamation, by the
voices of Italians who flocked to Rome to vote. How far Gracchus saw the
inevitable effects of his acts is open to dispute. But probably he saw
it as clearly as any man can see the future. Because he was generous and
enthusiastic, it is assumed that he was sentimental and weak, and that
his policy was guided by impulse rather than reason. There seems little
to sustain such a judgment other than the desire of writers to emphasise
a comparison between him and his brother.”[c]
The bill itself was then passed by acclamation, and three commissioners
destined to execute its provisions were elected--Tiberius himself, his
father-in-law App. Claudius, his brother Caius, then a youth of twenty,
serving under Scipio in Spain. The law was not deemed safe unless it was
intrusted for execution to Tiberius and his kinsmen.
In a few weeks Gracchus had risen to the summit of power. He seldom
stirred from home without being followed by a crowd. The Numantian War
and the Servile War still lingered, and the government of the senate was
not in a condition to defy attack. That body now was thoroughly alarmed,
and Gracchus soon proceeded to measures which touched them in their
tenderest point. Attalus Philometor, king of Pergamus, the last of the
line of Eumenes, was just dead, and had bequeathed his kingdom with all
his lands and treasure to the Roman people. In ordinary times the senate
would at once have assumed the disposition of this bequest; but Gracchus
gave notice that he would propose a bill to enact that the moneys should
be distributed to those who were to receive allotments of public land,
in order to assist them in purchasing stock, in erecting farm buildings,
and the like; and he added that he would bring the subject of its future
government before the people without allowing the senate to interfere. He
thus openly announced a revolution.
When Gracchus next appeared in the senate house, he was accused of
receiving a purple robe and diadem from the envoy of the late king of
Pergamus. T. Annius, an old senator, who had been consul twenty years
before, openly taxed the tribune with violating the constitution.
Gracchus, stung to the quick by this last assault, indicted the old
consular for treason against the majesty of the people. Annius appeared;
but before Gracchus could speak, he said: “I suppose, if one of your
brother tribunes offers to protect me, you will fly into a passion and
depose him also.” Gracchus saw the effect produced, and broke up the
assembly.
Moreover, many of his well-wishers had been alarmed by a law, by which
he had made the triumviri absolute judges, without appeal, on disputed
questions with regard to property in land. Many allotments of public land
had been granted, whose titles had been lost; and every person holding
under such condition saw his property at the mercy of irresponsible
judges.
Gracchus felt that his popularity was shaken, and at the next assembly
he thought it necessary to make a set speech to vindicate his conduct
in deposing Octavius. The sum of his arguments amounts to a plea of
necessity. It is true that the constitution of Rome provided no remedy
against the abuse of power by an officer, except the shortness of time
during which he held office and his liability to indictment at the close
of that time. The tribunician authority, originally demanded to protect
the people, might have turned against the people. But was it not open to
Gracchus to propose a law by which the veto of a single tribune might
be limited in its effect? Or might he not have waited for the election
of new tribunes, and taken care that all were tried friends of his law?
Instead of this he preferred a _coup-d’état_, and thus set an example
which was sure to be turned against himself.[76]
The violent language of Nasica and his party made it plain that in the
next year, when his person was no longer protected by the sanctity of
the tribunician office, he would be vigorously assailed. He therefore
determined to offer himself for re-election at the approaching assembly
of the tribes. But his election was far from secure. Harvest-work
occupied the country voters; many had grown cold; the mass of those who
resided in the city were clients and dependents of the nobility. It was
to regain and extend his popularity that he now brought forward three
measures calculated to please all classes except the senatorial families.
First, he proposed to diminish the necessary period of military service.
Secondly, he announced a reform of the superior law courts, by which the
juries were to be taken not from the senators only, but from all persons
possessing a certain amount of property. Thirdly, he provided an appeal
in all cases from the law courts to the assembly of the people.
These measures, which in altered forms were afterwards carried by his
brother Caius, were only brought forward by Tiberius. But this was
enough. His popularity returned in full tide.
When the day of the election came, the prerogative tribe gave its vote
for Gracchus and his friends; so also the next. But it was objected that
the same man could not be chosen in two successive years; and after a hot
debate the assembly was adjourned till next day.
It wanted yet some hours of nightfall. Gracchus came forth into the
Forum, clad in black, and leading his young son by the hand. In
anticipation of his untimely end, he committed his precious charge to his
fellow-citizens. All hearts were touched. The people surrounded him with
eager gesticulations, and escorted him home, bidding him be of good cheer
for the morrow. Many of his warmest adherents kept guard at his doors all
night.[b]
[Illustration: ROMAN COURTYARD FOUNTAIN]
“The father’s affection and the statesman’s bitter dismay,” says Beesly,
“at finding the dearest object of his life about to be snatched from
him by violence need not have been tinged with one particle of personal
fear. A man of tried bravery, like Gracchus, might guard his own life
indeed, but only as he regarded it as indispensable to a great cause.
That evening he told his partisans he would give them a sign next day
if he should think it necessary to use force at his election. It has
been assumed that this proves he was meditating treason. But it proves
no more than that he meant to repel force forcibly if, as was only too
certain, force should be used, and this is not treason. No other course
was open to him. The one weak spot in his policy was that he had no
material strength at his back. Even Sulla would have been a lost man at
a later time, if he had not had an army at hand to which he could flee
for refuge, just as without the army Cromwell would have been powerless.
But it was harvest-time now, and the Italian allies of Gracchus were away
from home in the fields. The next day dawned, and with it occurred omens
full of meaning to the superstitious Romans.”[c]
The adjourned assembly met that morning upon the Capitol, and the area
in front of the temple of Jupiter was filled chiefly by the adherents
of Gracchus, among whom the tribune was himself conspicuous, in company
with his Greek friend and preceptor Blossius of Cumæ. The senate also
assembled hard by in the temple of Faith. Nasica rose and urged the
presiding consul to stop the re-election. But Scævola declined.[77]
On this, Fulvius Flaccus left the senate, informed Gracchus of the
speech of Nasica, and told him that his death was resolved upon. Then
the friends of Gracchus girded up their gowns and armed themselves with
staves, for the purpose of repelling force by force. In the midst of the
uproar Gracchus raised his hand to his head. His enemies cried that he
was asking for a crown. Exaggerated reports were carried into the senate
house, and Nasica exclaimed, “The consul is betraying the republic: those
who would save their country, follow me!” So saying, he drew the skirt
of his gown over his head, after the manner used by the pontifex maximus
in solemn acts of worship. A number of senators followed, and the people
respectfully made way. But the nobles and their partisans broke up the
benches that had been set out for the assembly, and began an assault upon
the adherents of Gracchus, who fled in disorder. Gracchus abandoned all
thoughts of resistance; he left his gown in the hands of a friend who
sought to detain him, and made towards the temple of Jupiter. But the
priests had closed the doors; and in his haste he stumbled over a bench
and fell. As he was rising, one of his own colleagues struck him on the
head with a stool; another claimed the honour of repeating the blow; and
before the statues of the old kings at the portico of the temple the
tribune lay dead. Many of his adherents were slain with him; many were
forced over the wall at the edge of the Tarpeian rock, and were killed by
their fall. Not fewer than three hundred lost their lives in the fray.
Caius had just returned from Spain,[78] and asked leave to bury his
brother’s corpse. This was refused. The triumphant party ordered the
bodies of Tiberius and his friends to be thrown into the Tiber before
morning. Thus flowed the first blood that was shed in civil strife at
Rome.
Tiberius Gracchus must be allowed the name of Great, if greatness be
measured by the effects produced upon society by the action of a single
mind, rather than by the length of time during which power is held,
or the success that follows upon bold enterprises. He held office not
more than seven months; and in that short time he so shook the power of
the senate, that it never entirely recovered from the blow. His nature
was noble; his views and wishes those of a true patriot. But he was
impatient of opposition, and by his abrupt and violent conduct provoked
a resistance which he might have avoided. When the moment of action
came, his temper was too gentle, or his will too irresolute, to take the
bold course which his own conduct and that of the senate had rendered
necessary.
When Scipio, in the camp before Numantia, heard of his kinsman’s end, he
exclaimed in the words of Homer:
“So perish all and every one who dares such deeds as he!”
But the sequel will show that it was not so much of the political
measures of Gracchus that Scipio disapproved, as of the impatience which
he had shown and the violence which he had used in carrying them. Such
defects of character were of all most displeasing to a soldier and a
stoic.
RETURN AND DEATH OF SCIPIO THE YOUNGER
[Sidenote: [133-132 B.C.]]
The struggle had now commenced between the oligarchy and the democracy.
This struggle was to last till the dictator Sulla for a time restored the
senate to sovereignty, which was wrested from them again by a dictator
yet more potent than Sulla. But we should be wrong to assume that the
senate and the oligarchy were always identical. At times they were so,
for at times the violent party among the nobles were in command of a
majority in the senate; but a moderate party always existed, who stood
between the nobility and the democracy. It was the violent party, headed
by Nasica, not the body itself, which was responsible for the death of
Gracchus. The senate did not support them.
The people were allowed to proceed quietly to the election of a new
commissioner in the place of Gracchus, and their choice fell on P.
Licinius Crassus, brother by blood of the consul Scævola, who had been
adopted into the family of the Crassi. His daughter had lately been
married to young Caius Gracchus, and he now became the acknowledged
leader of the party.
Nor did the senate attempt to shield Nasica from popular indignation. He
was branded as the murderer of Gracchus, and his friends advised him to
quit Italy, though, as chief pontifex, he was prohibited from doing so.
No long time after he died at Pergamus, and Crassus succeeded him in the
pontificate.
But in the course of the next year (132 B.C.) the senate was induced to
give the new consuls a commission to inquire into the conduct of those
who had abetted Gracchus. They began their proceedings by associating
with themselves C. Lælius, a man of known moderation. Before the inquiry
commenced, Lælius sent for Blossius, and questioned him privately as to
his part in the late disturbances. He excused himself on the ground that
he had only followed the tribune’s orders.
“That,” said Lælius, “is no excuse. What would you have done if he had
ordered you to set the Capitol on fire?”
“Gracchus,” replied Blossius, “could never have given such an order.”
“But if he had?” insisted Lælius.
“Then,” said Blossius, “I would have done it.”
This bold partisan, however, was suffered to escape. Diophanes of
Mytilene, another of the preceptors of Gracchus, was arrested by the
consuls and put to death. Others also lost their lives, and some escaped
death by exile. These whole proceedings were in violation of the laws of
appeal; for the consuls had no legal power to try and condemn within the
city.
It was not probably till the autumn of this year that Scipio celebrated
his Numantian triumph. It was not gorgeous with spoils and a long
train of captives, for the Numantians had buried themselves and their
possessions beneath the ruins of their city. But the presence of Scipio,
at this moment, was or might be pregnant with results; and as he passed
in procession to the Capitol, many eyes turned to him with expectation.
It might be thought that his approval of the death of Gracchus
sufficiently indicated what part he intended to take. But it was possible
for him to disapprove of the conduct of Gracchus without disapproving of
his purpose. The countrymen of Latium and Italy had fought under him at
Carthage and at Numantia. It was known that among the rest he had shown
especial honour to a young soldier of Arpinum, of humble birth and rude
manners. On one occasion he had invited this youth to supper, and placed
him by his side; and when some flatterer asked where a general could be
found to succeed him, “Perhaps here,” he said, laying his hand on the
young soldier’s arm. This youth was C. Marius.
Whatever doubt might rest on Scipio’s intentions, he soon made it clear
that he had no intention of holding out a hand to the civic populace. One
of the partisans of Gracchus, by name C. Papirius Carbo, a man of ready
wit, but in character turbulent, reckless, and unprincipled, hoped to
raise himself to importance by means of this rabble. He was tribune for
the year, and had carried a law for extending the use of the ballot into
the legislative assemblies of the people. He now brought forward another
bill, making it legal to re-elect a tribune to a second year of office.
Scipio and Lælius opposed the measure, and the former spoke so warmly
against it, that it was rejected by the tribes, though young C. Gracchus
made his first public speech in its favour. It was then that Carbo
publicly demanded of Scipio what he thought of the death of Gracchus.
“That he was rightly put to death,” Scipio promptly replied. At these
words an angry shout was raised. Scipio turned sternly to the quarter
from which it came. “Peace,” he said, “ye stepsons of Italy; remember who
it was that brought you in chains to Rome.”
[Sidenote: [131-130 B.C.]]
Early in the same year, however (131 B.C.), an incident occurred which
also parted Scipio from Crassus. The consuls for the year were Crassus
himself and L. Valerius Flaccus. The former was pontifex maximus, the
latter was flamen of Mars. It happened that one Aristonicus, a bastard
son of the last Eumenes, had raised an insurrection in the mountain
districts near Pergamus, and matters had become so serious that a
consular army was required. Both consuls were eager for command; but by
reason of their sacred offices they were both legally unable to leave
Italy, and Scipio’s tried skill in war pointed him out as the fittest
man for command. Yet such was the popularity of Crassus, that out of
thirty-five tribes, two only voted for Scipio and the rest for him.
Considering a vote of the people as superior to the law, he completed his
levies and set out for Pergamus, never to return. Scipio retired from
Rome in disgust.
In this same year the censorship was held by Q. Metellus and Q.
Pompeius--an event noted by all the historians as memorable, since now
for the first time two men of plebeian blood were elected to the most
august magistracy of the state. It is rather matter of wonder that an
artificial distinction, which for all practical purposes was obsolete,
should have been so long retained in the censorship, than that it should
now have ceased.
If Crassus had returned, he might have taken more active steps to
diminish the violence which the democratic leaders were beginning to
encourage. But early in the year 130 B.C. he was defeated by Aristonicus
in a pitched battle, and taken prisoner. The Roman statesman and jurist,
deeming slavery intolerable, purposely struck the barbarian who had
captured him in the face with his sword-belt, and was instantly cut down.
His head was carried to Aristonicus, his body interred at Smyrna.
About the same time died App. Claudius. The natural leader of the
Gracchan party would now have been C. Gracchus. But this young man
had withdrawn from public life at the advice of his mother Cornelia.
Consequently fresh power fell into the hands of the reckless Carbo, who
was supported by Fulvius Flaccus; and the whole character of the party
became more positively democratic.
These leaders sought to recover their popularity with the country tribes
by calling the Agrarian law into fresh life. Of the three commissioners
elected for the year C. Gracchus still appeared on the list; the
vacancies made by the deaths of Crassus and App. Claudius were filled by
Carbo and Flaccus.
The rich landholders had endeavoured to baffle the law by passive
resistance. To foil this policy, Carbo and his colleagues issued a
proclamation, calling for information against all who had not duly
registered themselves as holders of public land. The call was readily
obeyed, and the triumvirs were soon overburdened with names. The next
step was to decide on the rights of the present holders, and to determine
the boundaries between the private and the public lands in each estate.
This was a task of extreme delicacy, and here the loss of Crassus was
sensibly felt. The ignorant and reckless Carbo raised up a host of
formidable opponents.
[Illustration: SCIPIO LEAVING ROME]
[Sidenote: [130-129 B.C.]]
Portions of the public land had often been alienated by grant or sale.
The holders were now, in consequence of Carbo’s proclamation, suddenly
called upon to produce their title deeds, which in many cases were
missing; so that a vast number of these holders were liable to be
stripped of lands which were undoubtedly their own. Further, in cases
where persons held property partly public and partly private, there were
often no documents to show which part was public and which private. The
commissioners acted in the most arbitrary way, and exasperated a vast
number of persons throughout all Italy; and thus a new popular party was
called forth, which exercised a most important influence on the events of
the next fifty years. In Carbo’s rash haste to win the Roman countrymen
he recked not of the hostility of Latins and Italians; and those who had
lately worshipped Gracchus now rose like one man to oppose those who now
pretended to represent Gracchus.
These new opponents of the Agrarian law had no mind to join the Roman
oligarchs, but turned to Scipio and supplicated him to undertake their
cause. They had claims upon him, for they had volunteered to fill
his army when the senate had no money to give him, and he had always
manifested sympathy with them. Averse as he was from party politics,
he did not shrink from the task, and the moderate party in the senate
welcomed his return. He began by moving that a decree should issue for
withdrawing from the triumvirs the judicial power with which they had
been invested by Gracchus, and transferring the jurisdiction to the
consuls. The decree passed, and the task was committed to C. Sempronius
Tuditanus, a man of refined taste, fonder of art and literature than of
business. But news came of a movement among the Iapydes, a people on the
Illyrian frontier; and Tuditanus eagerly seized this excuse for hastening
to Aquileia, feeling confident that he could better cope with barbarous
enemies than with the more barbarous perplexities of the law.
[Sidenote: [129 B.C.]]
All proceedings were thus cut short. The senate had taken away
jurisdiction from the triumvirs; the consul to whom it was committed had
fled. General discontent arose. Scipio was accused of having betrayed
Roman interests to the Italians. His enemies spread reports that he had
sold himself to the oligarchy, that he intended to repeal the Sempronian
law by force, and let loose his Italian soldiery upon the people of Rome.
Scipio felt that it was necessary to explain his motives, and announced
his purpose of delivering set speeches, one day in the senate, and the
day after in the Forum. The first only of these purposes was fulfilled.
By his speech in the senate he pledged himself to maintain the rights of
the Latins and Italians against the triumvirs, and to prevent the unjust
resumption of the lands that had been granted to them. The senate loudly
applauded; and Scipio was escorted home by the mass of the senators with
a jubilant crowd of Italians. Many thought this the most glorious day of
his life. He retired to rest early, in good health. In the morning he was
found dead in his bed. By his side lay the tablets on which he had been
noting down the heads of the oration which he had intended to make next
day.
The death of Scipio struck consternation into the hearts of the senators.
Metullus exclaimed that he had been murdered. It is said that on the
neck marks as of strangulation appeared; and when he was carried out to
burial the head was covered, contrary to custom. At the moment suspicion
attached to C. Gracchus, and to his sister Sempronia, the wife of Scipio.
But these unfounded rumours soon passed over; and it was confidently
affirmed that Carbo was the murderer. Cicero speaks of it as an undoubted
fact; the character, as well as the subsequent history, of the man
justifies the belief.[b] Appian,[g] on the other hand, is non-committal,
mentioning rumours against Cornelia as well as Sempronia, and adding
that “some believe he gave himself this death, because he saw he could
not perform what he promised”; while others assert “that Scipio’s slaves
under torment confessed that some unknown men they had let in at the back
door had strangled him, and that they dared not disclose the murder,
because they knew that the people, hating Scipio, rejoiced at his death.”
Of modern authorities, George Long[d] thinks “the circumstances of
Scipio’s death were suspicious.” But he doubts even that Cicero believed
his own charge against Carbo; and adds “the conclusion should be that
Scipio died a natural death.” Ihne[f] says: “After a minute and careful
examination of the circumstances, there appears to be no reason to doubt
that Scipio’s death was natural.” This, however, is perhaps stating the
case a little too strongly. Whatever the balance of probability, it
can never be proven conclusively whether Scipio died naturally or by
violence: in the minds of some investigators, the question will always
hold a place in the long list of historical uncertainties.[a]
Thus died the younger Africanus. No public honours attested his public
services. The funeral feast was furnished in the most thrifty manner by
his nephew Q. Tubero, a rigid stoic, who was glad thus to remind the
people of their ingratitude.
Scipio possessed no lofty genius like the great man whose name he bore;
yet there was at Rome no one of his own time to be compared with him.
To say that he was the best general of the day is little praise, for
military talent was at that time scarce; but no doubt his abilities for
war would have won him glory in the best times of the republic. His
disinterested generosity has been already noticed; at his death he was
found to be no richer than when he succeeded to the inheritance of the
great Scipio. His love of the country and his habitual reserve led him
to shun public life. But the austere manner and severe gravity which he
commonly affected gave way among his friends; and there is nothing that
more raises our esteem for Scipio than the warm attachment borne to him
by such men as Polybius, as well as Lælius, Rupilius, and others, whom
Cicero has introduced into his beautiful dialogues. Scipio has usually
been represented as a stiff adherent of the oligarchy, but the facts of
history disprove this opinion. He might have lived some years to moderate
the fury of party strife, to awe the factious, and to support just
claims; for at his death he numbered no more than six-and-fifty years.
His death at this moment was perhaps the greatest loss that the republic
could have suffered.[b]
The general verdict on Scipio is laudatory. Even George Long,[d] who
ridicules the usual historical summing-up of great men, finds Scipio
worthy of much praise, but Beesly is of such contrary mind that he may
well be quoted:
“He is usually extolled as a patriot who would not stir to humour a Roman
rabble, but who, when downtrodden honest farmers, his comrades in the
wars, appealed to him, at once stepped into the arena as their champion.
In reality he was a reactionist who, when the inevitable results of those
liberal ideas which had been broached in his own circle stared him in
the face, seized the first available means of stifling them. The world
had moved too fast for him. As censor, instead of beseeching the gods to
increase the glory of the State, he begged them to preserve it. Brave as
a man, he was a pusillanimous statesman. It was well for his reputation
that he died just then. Without Sulla’s personal vices he might have
played Sulla’s part as a politician, and his atrocities in Spain as well
as his remark on the death of Tiberius Gracchus--words breathing the
very essence of a narrow swordman’s nature--showed that from bloodshed
at all events he would not have shrunk. It is hard to respect such a man
in spite of all his good qualities. Fortune gave him the opportunity
of playing a great part, and he shrank from it. When the crop sprang
up which he had himself helped to sow, he blighted it. But because he
was personally respectable, and because he held a middle course between
contemporary parties, he has found favour with historians, who are too
apt to forget that there is in politics, as in other things, a right
course and a wrong, and that to attempt to walk along both at once proves
a man to be a weak statesman, and does not prove him to be a great or
good man.”[c]
CAIUS GRACCHUS AND HIS TIMES
[Sidenote: [129-126 B.C.]]
The sudden death of Scipio was followed by a calm. The turbulent Carbo
vanishes from the scene, till nine years later he reappears as a champion
of the violent oligarchical party. C. Gracchus was still living in
retirement. Fulvius Flaccus was content to let the Agrarian law sleep
in face of the portentous difficulties created by the measures of the
triumvirs. Nor was there anything in foreign affairs to ruffle the
general calm. But under this external tranquillity a leaven of agitation
was at work. It was not to be expected that the new-born jealousy which
had sprung up between the Romans on the one side and the Latins and
Italians on the other, would fall asleep. Proposals, however, were set
afloat for reconciling these two opposing interests. The Italians were
led to hope that they might be made citizens of Rome, on condition that
they should not resist the execution of the Agrarian law.
But the burgesses of Rome soon perceived that the admission of the Latins
and Italians to the Roman franchise would reduce them to comparative
insignificance. All the benefits now derived from the provinces by
Romans exclusively must then be shared with a vastly increased number
of citizens, and the profits as well as the power of a Roman must be
materially diminished. In the year 126 B.C. a large number of Italian
strangers flocked to Rome, eager for the promised boon. But by this time
public opinion at Rome was so far changed that M. Junius Pennus, one
of the tribunes, brought forward what we may call a severe alien-act,
by which all strangers were compelled to quit Rome. The successors of
Gracchus, however, remained constant to their new policy, and Caius
himself was induced to speak in public for the second time. But he was
unsuccessful. The law of Pennus was passed; and from this time may be
dated that angry contest of feeling between the Romans and the Italians
which after thirty-eight years found vent in a bloody war.
When Caius delivered this speech he was quæstor-elect for the next
year. He was appointed to serve under the consul L. Aurelius Orestes,
when this officer undertook to reduce the Sardinian mountaineers, who
had been subjugated by the father of young Gracchus fifty years before.
After the first year’s operations Orestes was at a loss for supplies and
clothing; and from this difficulty he was relieved by his quæstor, who
by the memory of his father and his own persuasive eloquence induced the
Sardinian colonists to give voluntarily what the soldiers wanted. Shortly
after, envoys arrived at Rome from Micipsa, son of Masinissa, offering,
from respect (as they said) for the name of Gracchus, to send supplies
of corn to Sardinia. The senate angrily dismissed the embassy. Orestes
was directed to remain as proconsul in his province, and his quæstor was
ordered to continue in office for a second year.
[Sidenote: [126-123 B.C.]]
Meanwhile the country party had succeeded in carrying the election of
their present chief, Fulvius Flaccus, to the consulship for 125 B.C. He
was a man with little force of oratory, but his activity and audacity
gave him power, and his unchangeable attachment to the memory of Ti.
Gracchus made him respectable. No sooner was he in the consul’s chair
than he gave full proof of his headlong temerity by giving notice of a
bill for extending the franchise to all the Latin and Italian allies.
It was a reform bill sweeping beyond all example. No addition had been
made to the Roman territory or the number of tribes since 241 B.C., a
period of 116 years, and now at one stroke it was proposed to add to the
register a population much more numerous than the whole existing number
of Roman burgesses. The tribes felt their interests to be at stake, and
the measure of Flaccus was highly unpopular at Rome.
At this moment, the senate adroitly contrived to detach Flaccus upon
foreign service. The people of Massilia, old allies of Rome, sent to
demand protection against the Salluvians, a Ligurian tribe of the
Maritime Alps, and Flaccus was ordered to take command of the army
destined to relieve them. He remained in Gaul for more than two years,
and was honoured with a triumph in the year 123 B.C. Meantime his great
measure for extending the franchise fell to the ground.
But the hopes excited by the impetuous consul were not easily
relinquished. The excitement was great throughout Italy, and in one of
the Latin colonies the smouldering fire burst into flame.
Fregellæ was a large and flourishing city on the Latin road. It was
one of the eighteen colonies which had remained faithful to Rome in
the Hannibalic War. It had seen the full franchise conferred on its
neighbours at Formiæ, Fundi, and Arpinum at the close of that war. And
now the cup was dashed from the very lip. Fregellæ flew to arms, without
concert with any other towns; and L. Opimius, one of the prætors, a
man of prompt resolution and devoid of pity, was ordered by the senate
to crush the insurrection. The gates were opened to him by treachery.
Opimius took his seat in the Forum, and exercised a fearful vengeance on
the inhabitants, for which he was rewarded by the senate with a triumph.
The walls were pulled down, and the colony, stripped of all its rights,
was reduced to the condition of a mere market-town (_conciliabulum_). The
example of Fregellæ for a time silenced the claims of the Italians.
Thus triumphant, the senate determined to keep the chiefs of the Gracchan
party absent from Rome. Flaccus had not yet finished his Gallic wars; and
an order was sent to detain C. Gracchus for a third year in Sardinia. But
the young quæstor perceived the drift of this order, and returned to Rome
about the middle of the year 124 B.C., to the no small consternation of
the senate. He was instantly summoned before the censors then in office
to account for his conduct, in order that he might be branded with a
public stigma, and thus disqualified from taking his seat in the senate
house. He made his defence to the people in a set speech, in which he
declared that the senate had no right to keep him employed as quæstor for
more than one year. “No one,” he added, “can say that I have received a
penny in presents, or have put any one to charges on my own account. The
purse which I took out full I have brought back empty; though I could
name persons who took out casks filled with wine and brought them home
charged with money.” He was triumphantly acquitted, and at once came
forward as candidate for the tribunate. The senate exerted all their
influence to prevent his election, and succeeded so far that his name
stood only fourth on the list. But as soon as he entered office, no one
disputed his title to be first.
[Sidenote: [123 B.C.]]
The die was now cast. For ten years he had held back from public life;
but the vexatious course pursued by the senate roused him to action; the
pent-up energy of his passionate nature burst forth, and he threw aside
all restraints both of fear and of prudence.
Hitherto there had been no proof of the young speaker’s powers. Twice
only had he spoken in public, and both times he had been on the losing
side. But years of diligent study had passed, and he became the greatest
orator that Rome had yet seen. Much as Cicero disliked Gracchus, he
speaks with lively admiration of his genius, and laments the loss which
Latin literature had sustained by his early death. The care which the
young orator bestowed on preparation was extraordinary; he was the first
to use regular gesticulation, and in his most fiery outbursts his voice
was so modulated as never to offend the ear.
His first measures are marked by that which was the ruling passion of his
life--a burning desire to avenge his brother’s death. Nasica was beyond
his reach. But others, who had persecuted the friends and followers of
Tiberius, were yet alive, and he inveighed against their cruel severity
on all occasions. “Your ancestors,” he exclaimed, “suffered not their
tribunes to be trampled down. But you--you let these men beat Tiberius to
death, and murder his friends without a trial!”
Accordingly he brought a bill aimed at Popilius, who had been the head of
the special commission appointed after the death of Tiberius. It declared
any magistrate guilty of treason who had punished a citizen capitally
without the consent of the people. Before it passed, Popilius left Rome;
and the tribes, on the motion of Caius, banished him.
The young tribune next moved that any one who should have been deprived
of office by a vote of the people should be incapable of holding any
other office--an enactment evidently pointed at his brother’s old
opponent Octavius. Fortunately for the honour of Gracchus, he was stopped
in his career of vengeance by the intercession of his mother.
He now turned his thoughts to measures of a public nature, and brought
forward a series of important bills, long known as the Sempronian laws,
so sweeping in their design, as to show that he meditated no less than
a revolution in the government of Rome. They may be divided into two
classes: first, those which were intended to ameliorate the condition of
the people; secondly, those which aimed at diminishing the power of the
senate.
(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.
[Illustration: A TRIBUNE OF THE PEOPLE]
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.”]
[Illustration: ROMAN TWEEZERS
(In the British Museum)]
[Illustration]