CAIUS GRACCHUS.
[Sidenote: Revenge of the aristocracy.] Over three hundred of the
people were killed and thrown into the Tiber, and the aristocracy
followed up their triumph as harshly as they dared. They banished
some, and slew others of the tribune's partisans. Plutarch says that
they fastened up one in a chest with vipers. When Blossius was brought
before his judges he avowed that he would have burned the Capitol if
Gracchus had told him to do it, so confident was he in his leader's
patriotism--an answer testifying not only to the nobleness of the two
friends, but to the strong character of one of them. Philosophers are
not so impressed by weak, impulsive men. Blossius was spared, probably
because he had connexions with some of the nobles rather than because
his reply inspired respect. But while the aristocracy was making war
on individuals, the work of the dead man went on, as if even from the
grave he was destined to bring into sharper relief the pettiness of
their projects by the grandeur of his own.
[Sidenote: The law of Gracchus remains in force.] The allotment of
land was vigorously carried out; and when Appius Claudius and Mucianus
died, the commissioners were partisans of Tiberius--his brother Caius,
M. Fulvius Flaccus, and C. Papirius Carbo. [Sidenote: Its beneficial
effects.] In the year 125, instead of another decrease in the
able-bodied population, we find an increase of nearly 80,000. It seems
probable that this increase was solely in consequence of what the
allotment commissioners did for the Roman burgesses. Nor, if the
Proletarii and Capite Censi were not included in the register of those
classed for military service, is the increase remarkable, for it would
be to members of those classes that the allotments would be chiefly
assigned. Moreover, the poor whom the rich expelled from their lands
did not give in their names to the censors, and did not attend to the
education of their children. These men would, on receiving allotments,
enrol themselves. The consul of the year 132 inscribed on a public
monument that he was the first who had turned the shepherds out of
the domains, and installed farmers in their stead; and these farmers
became, as Gracchus intended, a strong reinforcement to the Roman
soldier-class, as well as a check to slave labour. What was done at
Rome was done also, it is said, throughout Italy, and if on the same
scale, it must have been a really enormous measure of relief to the
poor, and a vast stride towards a return to a healthier tenure of the
land. [Sidenote: Difficulties and hardships in enforcing it.] But it
is not hard to imagine what heart-burnings the commissioners must have
aroused. Some men were thrust out of tilled land on to waste land.
Some who thought that their property was private property found to
their cost that it was the State's. Some had encroached, and their
encroachments were now exposed. Some of the Socii had bought parcels
of the land, and found out now that they had no title. Lastly, some
land had been by special decrees assigned to individual states, and
the commissioners at length proceeded to stretch out their hands
towards it.
Historians, while recording such things, have failed to explain why
the chief opposition to the commissioners arose from the country which
had furnished the chief supporters of Tiberius, and what was the exact
attitude assumed by Scipio Aemilianus. It is lost sight of that as at
Rome there were two classes, so there were two classes in Italy. It
is absurd constantly to put prominently forward the sharp division of
interests in the capital, and then speak of the country classes as
if they were all one body, and their interests the same. [Sidenote:
Divisions in Italy similar to those in Rome.] The natural and
apparently the only way of explaining what at first sight seems the
inconsistency of the country class is to conclude, that the men who
supported Tiberius were the poor of the Italian towns and the small
farmers of the country, while the men who called on Scipio to save
them from the commissioners were the capitalists of the towns and the
richer farmers--some of them voters, some of them non-voters--with
their forces swollen, it may be, by not a few who, having clamoured
for more land, found now that the title to what they already had was
called in question. Though this cannot be stated as a certainty, it at
least accounts for what historians, after many pages on the subject,
have left absolutely unexplained, and it presents the conduct of
Scipio Aemilianus in quite a different light from the one in which it
has commonly been regarded. 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. [Sidenote: Attitude of
Scipio Aemilianus.] 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. And no doubt he would have
greatly preferred that the gods should act without his intervention.
Brave as a man, he was a pusillanimous statesman; and when confronted
by the revolutionary spirit which he and his friends had helped to
evoke, he determined at all costs to prop up the senatorial power.
[Sidenote: His unpopularity with the Senate.] But the Senate hated
him, partly as a trimmer, and partly because by his personal character
he rebuked their baseness. He had just impeached Aurelius Cotta, a
senator, and the judices, from spite against him, had refused to
convict. So he turned to the Italian land-owners, and became
the mouthpiece of their selfishness, for a selfish or at best a
narrow-minded end. The nobles must have, at heart, disliked his
allies; but they cheered him in the Senate, and he succeeded in
practically strangling the commission by procuring the transfer of its
jurisdiction to the consuls. The consul for the time being immediately
found a pretext for leaving Rome, and a short time afterwards Scipio
was found one morning dead in his bed. [Sidenote: His death.] He had
gone to his chamber the night before to think over what he should say
next day to the people about the position of the country class, and,
if he was murdered, it is almost as probable that he was murdered by
some rancorous foe in the Senate as by Carbo or any other Gracchan. 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 swordsman'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.
[Sidenote: The early career of Caius Gracchus.] In B.C. 126 Caius
Gracchus, seven years after he had been made one of the commissioners
for the allotment of public land, was elected quaestor. Sardinia was
at that time in rebellion, and it fell by lot to Caius to go there as
quaestor to the consul Orestes. It is said that he kept quiet when
Tiberius was killed, and intended to steer clear of politics. But
one of those splendid bursts of oratory, with which he had already
electrified the people, remains to show over what he was for ever
brooding. 'They slew him,' he cried, 'these scoundrels slew Tiberius,
my noble brother! Ah, they are all of one pattern.' He said this in
advocating the Lex Papiria, which proposed to make the re-election of
a tribune legal. But Scipio opposed the law, and it was defeated then,
to be carried, however, a few years later. Again, in the year of his
quaestorship, he spoke against the law of M. Junius Pennus, which
aimed at expelling all Peregrini from Rome. They were the very men by
whose help Tiberius had carried his agrarian law, and when Caius spoke
for them he was clearly treading in his brother's steps. At a later
time he declared that he dreamt Tiberius came to him and said, 'Why do
you hesitate? You cannot escape your doom and mine--to live for the
people and die for them.' Such a story would be effective in a speech,
and particularly effective when told to a superstitious audience; but
his day-dreams we may be sure were the cause and not the consequence
of his visions of the night. For there can be no doubt that the
younger brother had already one purpose and one only--to avenge the
death of Tiberius and carry out his designs.
Such omens as Roman credulity fastened on when the political air was
heavy with coming storm abounded now. With grave irony the historian
records: 'Besides showers of oil and milk in the neighbourhood of
Veii, a fact of which some people may doubt, an owl, it is said, was
seen on the Capitol, which may have been true.' Fulvius Flaccus, the
friend of Gracchus, made the first move. [Sidenote: Proposition of
Fulvius Flaccus. Its significance.] In order to buy off the opposition
of the Socii to the agrarian law, he proposed to give them the
franchise, just as Licinius, when he had offered the poor plebeians a
material boon, offered the rich ones a political one, so as to secure
the united support of the whole body. The proposal was significant,
and it was made at a critical time. The poor Italians were chafing, no
doubt, at the suspension of the agrarian law. The rich were indignant
at the carrying of the law of Pennus. Other and deeper causes of
irritation have been mentioned above. In the year of the proposal of
Flaccus, and very likely in consequence of its rejection, Fregellae--a
Latin colony--revolted. [Sidenote: Revolt and punishment of
Fregellae.] The revolt was punished with the ferocity of panic. The
town was destroyed; a Roman colony, Fabrateria, was planted near its
site; and for the moment Italian discontent was awed into sullen
silence. No wonder the Senate was panic-stricken. Here was a real
omen, not conjured up by superstition, that one of those towns, which
through Rome's darkest fortunes in the second Punic War had remained
faithful to her, should single-handed and in time of peace raise the
standard of rebellion. Was Fregellae indeed single-handed? The Senate
suspected not, and turned furiously on the Gracchan party, and, it is
alleged, accused Caius of complicity with the revolt. [Sidenote: Caius
Gracchus accused of treason. He stands for the tribunate.] It was rash
provocation to give to such a man at such a time. If he was accused,
he was acquitted, and he at once stood for the tribunate. Thus the
party which had slain his brother found itself again at death-grips
with an even abler and more implacable foe.
[Sidenote: Prominence of Gracchus at home and abroad.] There is no
doubt that for some time past Caius Gracchus, young as he was, and
having as yet filled none of the regular high offices, had had the
first place in all men's thoughts. His first speech had been received
by the people with wild delight. He was already the greatest orator in
Rome. His importance is shown by the Senate's actually prolonging the
consul's command, in order to keep his quaestor longer abroad. But his
friends were consoled for his absence by the stories they heard of
the respect shown to him by foreign nations. The Sardinians would not
grant supplies to Orestes, and the Senate approved their refusal. But
Gracchus interposed, and they voluntarily gave what they had before
appealed against. Micipsa, son of Masinissa, also sent corn to
Orestes, but averred that it was out of respect to Gracchus. The
Senate's fears and the esteem of foreigners were equally just. What
the life of Gracchus was in Sardinia he has himself told us; and from
the implied contrast we may judge what was the life of the nobles of
the time. [Sidenote: His description of the life of a noble.] 'My
life,' he said to the people, 'in the province was not planned to suit
my ambition, but your interests. There was no gormandising with me,
no handsome slaves in waiting, and at my table your sons saw more
seemliness than at head-quarters. No man can say without lying that
I ever took a farthing as a present or put anyone to expense. I was
there two years; and if a single courtesan ever crossed my doors, or
if proposals from me were ever made to anyone's slave-pet, set me down
for the vilest and most infamous of men. And if I was so scrupulous
towards slaves, you may judge what my life must have been with your
sons. And, citizens, here is the fruit of such a life. I left Rome
with a full purse and have brought it back empty. Others took out
their wine jars full of wine, and brought them back full of money.'
Such was the man who now came back to Rome to demand from the
aristocracy a reckoning for which he had been yearning with undying
passion for nearly ten years. An exaggerated contrast between him and
Tiberius at the expense of the latter has been previously condemned.
The man who originates is always so far greater than the man who
imitates, and Caius only followed where his brother led. He was not
greater than but only like his brother in his bravery, in his culture,
in the faculty of inspiring in his friends strong enthusiasm and
devotion, in his unswerving pursuit of a definite object, and, as his
sending the son of Fulvius Flaccus to the Senate just before his
death proves in the teeth of all assertions to the contrary, in his
willingness to use his personal influence in order to avoid civil
bloodshed. [Sidenote: Caius compared with Tiberius.] 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. [Sidenote: The general purpose of the legislation
of Caius.] 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 the
country class. 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.
[Sidenote: Date of the tribunate of Caius, December 10, B.C. 124.]
Rome was thronged to overflowing by the country class, and the nobles
strained every nerve in opposition when Caius was elected tribune. He
was only fourth on the list out of ten, and entered on his office on
December 10, B.C. 124. With a fixed presentiment of his own fate, he
felt that, even if he wished to remain passive, the people would not
permit him to be so. He might, he said, have pleaded that he and his
young child were the last representatives of a noble line--of P.
Africanus and Tiberius Gracchus--and that he had lost a brother in the
people's cause; but the people would not have listened to the plea. It
has been said that his mother dissuaded him from his intentions. But
the fragments on which the statement is based are as likely as not
spurious; and Cornelia's fortitude after she had lost both her sons
would hardly have been shown by one capable of subordinating public to
private interests.
[Sidenote: Story of his mother's sentiments.] It is far more likely
that when in his stirring speeches he spoke of his home as no place
for him to visit, while his mother was weeping and in despair, he was
influenced by her adjurations to avenge his brother, and not by any
craven warnings against sharing his fate. However this may have been,
no timid influences could be traced in the fiery passion of his first
speeches. [Sidenote: Story of the means by which he modulated his
voice when speaking.] He was, in fact, so carried away by his feelings
that he had to resort to a curious device in order to keep his voice
under control. A man with a musical instrument used, it is said, to
stand near him, and warn him by a note at times if he was pitching his
voice too high or too low. It was now that he told his stories of the
flogging of the magistrate of Teanum and the murder of the Venusian
herdsman, and we can imagine how they would incense his hearers
against the nobles. Against one of them, Octavius, he specially
directed a law, making it illegal for any magistrate previously
deposed by the people to be elected to office; but this, at Cornelia's
suggestion it is said, he withdrew. Another law also had special
reference to the fate of Tiberius. It made illegal the trial of any
citizen for an offence which involved the loss of his civic rights
without the consent of the people. [Sidenote: Caius procures the
banishment of Popillius Laenas.] This law, if in force, would have
prevented the ferocity with which Popillius Laenas hunted down the
partisans of Tiberius; and Caius followed it up according to the
oration De Domo, by procuring against Popillius a sentence of
outlawry. One of the fragments from his speeches was probably spoken
at this time. In it he told the people that they now had the chance
they had so long and so passionately desired; and that, if they did
not avail themselves of it, they would lay themselves open to the
charge of caprice or of ungoverned temper. Popillius anticipated the
sentence by voluntary retirement from Rome.
[Sidenote: His Lex Frumentaria.] Having satisfied his conscience by
the performance of what no doubt seemed to him sacred duties, Caius
at once set to work to build up his new constitution. It is commonly
represented that in order to gain over the people to his side he
cynically bribed them by his Lex Frumentaria. Now if this were true,
and Caius were as clear-sighted as the same writers who insist on the
badness of the law describe him to have been, it is hard to see how
they can in the same breath eulogise his goodness and nobleness. To
gain his ends he would have been using vile means, and would have been
a vile man. [Sidenote: The common criticism on it unjust.] Looking,
however, more closely into the law, we are led to doubt whether it was
bad, or, at all events, even granting that eventually it led to evil,
whether it would have appeared likely to do so to Caius. The public
land, it must be remembered, was liable to an impost called vectigal.
This vectigal went into the Aerarium, which the nobles had at their
disposal. Now the law of Caius appears to have fixed a nominal price
for corn to all Roman citizens, and if the market price was above this
price the difference would have to be made good from the Aerarium. We
at once see the object of Caius, and how the justice of it might have
blinded him to the demoralising effects of his measure. 'The public
land,' he said in effect, 'belongs to all Romans and so does the
vectigal. If you take that to which you have no right, you shall give
it back again in cheap corn.' In short, it was a clever device for
partially neutralising the long misappropriation of the State's
property by the nobles, and for giving to the people what belonged
to the people--to each man, as it were, so many ears of corn from
whatever fraction would be his own share of the land. [Sidenote:
Contrast between the just proposal of Caius and the demagogy of
Drusus.] When Drusus was afterwards set up to outbid Caius, he
proposed that the vectigal should be remitted, and that the land that
had been assigned might be sold by the occupier. How this would catch
the farmer's fancy is as obvious as is its odious dishonesty. It was
dishonest to the State because it was only fair that each occupier
should contribute to its funds, and because it did away with the
hope of filling Italy with free husbandmen. It was dishonest to the
occupier himself, because it put in his way the worst temptation to
unthriftiness. When Caius renewed his brother's laws he purposely
charged the land distributed to the poor with a yearly vectigal.
How different was this from the mere demagogic trick of Drusus!
It appears, then, that the Lex Frumentaria of Caius is not the
indefensible measure which modern writers, filled with modern notions,
have called it. It has, moreover, been well said that it was a kind
of poor-law; and, even if bad in itself, may have been the least bad
remedy for the pauperism which not Caius, but senatorial misgovernment
had brought about. No doubt it conferred popularity on Caius, and no
doubt his popularity was acceptable to him; but there is no ground for
believing that his noble nature deliberately stooped to demoralise the
mob for selfish motives.
[Sidenote: His Lex Judiciaria.] One great party, however, he had thus
won over to his side. The Lex Judiciaria gained over the equites
also. It has been before explained that the equites at this time were
non-senatorial rich men. Senators were forbidden by law to mix in
commerce, though no doubt they evaded the law. Between the senatorial
and moneyed class there was a natural ill-will, which Caius proceeded
to use and increase. His exact procedure we do not know for certain.
According to some authorities he made the judices eligible from the
equites only, instead of from the Senate. In the epitome of Livy it is
stated that 600 of the equites were to be added to the number of the
senators, so that the equites should have twice as much power as the
Senate itself. This at first sight seems nonsense. But Caius may have
proposed that for judicial purposes 600 equites should form, as it
were, a second chamber, which, being twice as numerous, would permit
two judices for every senatorial judex. In form he may have devised
that 'counter-senate,' which, as it has been shown, he in fact
created. [Sidenote: The effects of it. The Senate abased, the equites
exalted.] But whether Caius provided that all the judices or only
two-thirds of them should be chosen from the equites, and in whatever
way he did so, he did succeed in exalting the moneyed class and
abasing the Senate. In civil processes, and in the permanent and
temporary commissions for the administration of justice, the equites
were henceforth supreme. Even the senators themselves depended on
their verdict for acquittal or condemnation, and the chief power in
the State had changed hands. Of course the change would not be felt
at once to the full; but this was the most trenchant stroke which
Gracchus aimed at the Senate's power. Here, again, it is customary to
write of his actions as if they were governed solely by feeling, quite
apart from all considerations of right and wrong. But Cicero declares
that for nearly fifty years, while the equites discharged this office,
there was not even the slightest suspicion of a single eques being
bribed in his capacity as judex; and after every allowance has been
made for Ciceronian exaggeration, the statement may at least warrant
us in believing that Gracchus had some reason for hoping that his
change would be a change for the better, even if, as Appian declares,
it turned out in the end just the opposite. Indeed, it is beyond
question that, as the provinces were governed by the senatorial class,
judices who had to decide cases like those of Cotta would be more
fairly chosen from the equites than from the class to which Cotta
belonged.
[Sidenote: The taxation of Asia.] We know little of the arrangements
for the taxation of Asia made by Gracchus. He provided that the taxes
should be let by auction at Rome, which would undoubtedly be a boon
to the Roman capitalists and a check to provincial competition. He is
said also to have substituted the whole system of direct and indirect
taxes for the previously existing system of fixed payments by the
various states. There was a certain narrowness about the conceptions
of both the Gracchi with regard to the transmarine world, which was
common to all Romans; to which, for instance, Tiberius gave expression
when he spoke of the conquest of the whole world as a thing which his
audience had a right to expect; and this sentiment may have in this
instance influenced Caius to use harshness. [Sidenote: The common
criticism on the measure of Caius unjust.] But even here to condemn
without more knowledge of his measures would be unjust. Fixed payments
it must be remembered were not always preferable to tithes of the
produce. In a sterile year the payers of vectigalia would be best off.
Again, if a rich province like Asia did not pay tribute in proportion
to other provinces, a re-adjustment of its taxes would not seem to the
Romans unfair; and perhaps auction at Rome would after all be less
mischievous than a hole-and-corner arrangement in the provinces. If
the sheep were to be fleeced, they would not be shorn closest in the
capital. [Sidenote: Measure for the relief of publicani.] To another
of his provisions at all events no one could object--the one which
gave relief to such publicani as had suffered loss in collecting the
revenue.
[Sidenote: Alleged privileges conferred on the equites.] Gracchus had
thus raised the equites above the Senate at Rome in the courts of
justice, and opened a golden harvest to them in the provinces. It
is conjectured that he also gave them the distinction of a golden
finger-ring and reserved seats at the public spectacles. Two classes
were thus gratified, the city poor and the city rich. [Sidenote:
Caius attempts to conciliate the farmer class and the Italians.] But
Gracchus had to deal also with those of the country class in whose
favour his brother's agrarian law had been passed, and with those
who had resented the law. To provide for the former he renewed the
operation of his brother's law, which had been suspended by Scipio's
intervention, and probably took away its administrations from
the consuls and restored it to triumvirs; and as that might be
insufficient, he began the establishment of many colonies in various
parts of the peninsula; and even beyond it at Carthage, to which he
invited colonists from all parts of Italy. To compensate and benefit
the latter he proposed to give them the franchise, so as to secure
them from such outrages as that of Teanum. For though such of them
as belonged to Roman colonies or municipia possessed the franchise
already, the mass of the Latins and Italians did not possess it. There
are different accounts of this measure; but Appian says that he wished
to give the Latini the Jus Suffragii and Jus Honorum, and to the rest
of the Italians the Jus Suffragii only. But here he reckoned without
his host. [Sidenote: Feeling at Rome.] The boons of colonies and cheap
bread, and the prospect of a slice out of the public land occupied by
Italians, were all not strong enough to overcome the deep, ingrained
prejudice against extending the franchise. Rich and poor Romans met
here on the common ground of narrow pride, and the offence caused by
this wise project probably paved the way for the tribune's fall.
In speaking of the motives which induced Tiberius to seek the
tribunate a second time (p. 33) it has been said that he was not
influenced by personal considerations, but wanted time to carry out
his measures. This view is confirmed by what Appian says about Caius,
namely, that he was elected a second time; for already a law had been
enacted to this effect, that if a tribune could not find time for
executing in his tribunate what he had promised, the people might give
the office to him again in preference to anyone else. This has been
pronounced to be a blunder on Appian's part, but without adequate
reason. It was in fact the natural and inevitable law which Caius
would insist on first, and he would plead for it precisely on the
grounds which Appian states. It is also clear that such a law once
passed made virtual monarchy at Rome possible. [Sidenote: Other
measures of Caius.] In fact the other measures of Caius were both
worthy of a great and wise monarch, and might with good reason
be thought to be designed to lead to monarchy. [Sidenote: Roads.
Granaries. Soldiers' uniform. Age for service.] He constructed
magnificent roads--along which, it would be whispered, his voters
might come more easily to Rome. He built public granaries. He gave
the soldiers clothing at the cost of the State. He made seventeen the
minimum age for service in the army. He himself superintended the
plantation of his own colonies. Everywhere he made his finger felt;
but whether this was of set purpose or only from his constitutional
energy it is hard to decide. His chief object, however, was to
overthrow the Senate; and we have not yet exhausted the list of his
assaults upon it. [Sidenote: Change in nomination to provinces.]
Hitherto it had been the custom for the Senate to name the consular
provinces for the next year after the election of the consuls, which
meant that if a favourite was consul a rich province was given to him,
and if not, a poor one. Caius enacted that the consular provinces
should be named before the election of the consuls. By way, perhaps,
of softening this restriction he took away from the tribunes their
veto on the naming of the consular provinces. [Sidenote: Alleged
change in the order of voting.] He is further supposed, though on
slender evidence, to have changed the order of voting in the Comitia
Centuriata. Formerly the first class voted first. Now the order of
voting first was to be settled by lot, and so the influence of the
rich would be diminished.
[Sidenote: General criticism of his schemes.] Such, in outline, was
the grand scheme of Caius Gracchus. If he was less single-minded in
his aims than his brother, he could hardly help being so; and, having
to reconcile so many conflicting interests, he may have swerved from
what would have been his own ideal. But that his main purpose was to
break down a rotten system, and establish a sound one on its ruins,
and that no petty motive of expediency guided him, but only the one
principle, 'salus populi suprema lex,' is incontrovertible. When we
think of him so eloquent, resolute, and energetic, conceiving such
great projects and executing them in person, making the regeneration
of his country his lodestar in spite of his ever-present belief that
he would, in the end, fall by the same fate as his brother, we think
of him as one of the noblest figures in history--a purer and less
selfish Julius Caesar.
[Sidenote: Machinations of the nobles.] As the petty acts of the
nobles had brought out into relief the large policy of Tiberius, so
it was now. They resorted to even lower tricks than accusations of
tyranny, and found in the fatuity or dishonesty of Drusus a tool even
more effective than Nasica's brutality. The plantation of a colony at
Carthage was looked at askance by many Romans. It was the first
colony planted out of Italy, and the superstitious were filled with
forebodings which the Senate eagerly exaggerated. Such colonies had
repeatedly out-grown and overtopped the parent state. The ground had
been solemnly cursed, and the restoration of the town forbidden. When
the first standard was set up by the colonists a blast of wind, it is
said, blew it down, and scattered the flesh of the victims; and wolves
had torn up the stakes that marked out the site. Such malicious
stories met with readier credence, because, if it is true that Caius
had called for colonists from all Italy, and Junonia was to be a Roman
colony, he was evading the decree of the people against extending the
franchise; and he was thus admitting to it, by a side-wind, those to
whom it had just in the harshest manner been refused. For, when the
vote had been taken, every man not having a vote had been expelled
from the city, and forbidden to come within five miles of it till the
voting was over. Caius had come to live in the Forum instead of on the
Palatine when he returned to Rome, among his friends as he thought;
and still even in little matters he stood forward as the champion of
the poor against the rich. There was going to be a show of gladiators
in the Forum, and the magistrates had enclosed the arena with benches,
which they meant to hire out. Caius asked them to remove the benches,
and, on their refusal, went the night before the show and took them
all away. Anyone who has witnessed modern athletic sports, and
observed how a crowd will hem in the competitors so that only a few
spectators can see, although an equally good view can be obtained by
a great number if the ring is enlarged, will perceive Caius's object,
and be slow to admit that he spoiled the show. But though such acts
pleased the people, all of them had not forgiven him the proposition
about the franchise; and his popularity was on the wane. [Sidenote:
Drusus outbids Caius.] The Senate had suborned one of his colleagues,
M. Livius Drusus, to outbid him. Either Drusus thought he was guiding
the Senate into a larger policy when he was himself merely the
Senate's puppet, and this his son's career makes probable, or he was
cynically dishonest and unscrupulous.
Caius had meditated, it may be, many colonies, but, according to
Plutarch, had at this time only actually settled two. Drusus proposed
to plant twelve, each of 3,000 citizens. Caius had superintended
the settlement himself, and employed his friends. With virtuous
self-denial Drusus washed his hands of all such patronage. Caius had
imposed a yearly tax on those to whom he gave land; Drusus proposed to
remit it. Caius had wished to give the Latins the franchise; Drusus
replied by a comparatively ridiculous favour, which, however, might
appeal more directly to the lower class of Latins. No Latin, he said,
should be liable to be flogged even when serving in the army. Drusus
could afford to be liberal. His colonies were sham colonies. His
remission of the vectigal was a thin-coated poison. His promise to the
Latins was at best a cheap one, and was not carried out. But none the
less his treachery or imbecility served its purpose, and the greedier
and baser of the partisans of Gracchus began to look coldly on their
leader. [Sidenote: Caius rejected for the tribunate.] It is stated,
indeed, that on his standing for the tribunate a third time he was
rejected by fraud, his colleagues having made a false return of the
names of the candidates. In any case he was not elected, and one of
the consuls for the year 121 was L. Opimius, his mortal foe.
The end was drawing near. Sadly Caius must have recognised that his
presentiments would soon be fulfilled, and that he must share his
brother's fate. [Sidenote: Preparations for civil strife.] His foes
proposed to repeal the law for the settlement of Junonia, and,
according to Plutarch, others of his laws also. Warned by the past,
his friends armed. Men came disguised as reapers to defend him. It is
likely enough that they were really reapers, who would remember why
Tiberius lost his life, and that their support would have saved him.
Fulvius was addressing the people about the law when Caius, attended
by some of his partisans, came to the Capitol. He did not join the
meeting, but began walking up and down under a colonnade to wait its
issue. Here a man named Antyllus, who was sacrificing, probably in
behalf of Opimius the consul, either insulted the Gracchans and was
stabbed by them, or caught hold of Caius's hand, or by some other
familiarity or importunity provoked some hasty word or gesture from
him, upon which he was stabbed by a servant. As soon as the deed
was done the people ran away, and Caius hastened to the assembly to
explain the affair. But it began to rain heavily; and for this, and
because of the murder, the assembly was adjourned. Caius and Fulvius
went home; but that night the people thronged the Forum, expecting
that some violence would be done at daybreak. Opimius was not slow to
seize the opportunity. He convoked the Senate, and occupied the temple
of Castor and Pollux with armed men. The body of Antyllus was placed
on a bier, and with loud lamentations borne along the Forum; and as
it passed by the senators came out and hypocritically expressed their
anger at the deed. Then, going indoors, they authorised the consul,
by the usual formula, to resort to arms. He summoned the senators and
equites to arm, and each eques was to bring two armed slaves. The
equites owed much to Gracchus, but they basely deserted him now.
Fulvius, on his side, armed and prepared for a struggle. All the night
the friends of Caius guarded his door, watching and sleeping by turns.
[Sidenote: Fighting in Rome.] The house of Fulvius was also surrounded
by men, who drank and bragged of what they would do on the morrow, and
Fulvius is said to have set them the example. At daybreak he and his
men, to whom he distributed the arms which he had when consul taken
from the Gauls, rushed shouting up to the Aventine and seized it.
Caius said good-bye to his wife and little child, and followed, in his
toga, and unarmed. He knew he was going to his death, but
For his country felt alone,
And prized her blood beyond his own.
One effort he made to avert the struggle. He induced Fulvius to send
his young son to the Senate to ask for terms. The messenger returned
with the Senate's reply that they must lay down their arms, and the
two leaders must come and answer for their acts. Caius was ready to
go. But Fulvius was too deeply committed, and sent his son back again,
upon which Opimius seized him, and at once marched to the Aventine.
There was a fight, in which Fulvius was beaten, and with another son
fled and hid himself in a bath or workshop. His pursuers threatened
to burn all that quarter if he was not given up; so the man who had
admitted him told another man to betray him, and father and son were
slain.
[Sidenote: Murder of Caius.] Meanwhile Caius, who had neither armed
nor fought, was about to kill himself in the temple of Diana, when his
two friends implored him to try and save himself for happier
times. Then it is said he invoked a curse on the people for their
ingratitude, and fled across the Tiber. He was nearly overtaken; but
his two staunch friends, Pomponius and Laetorius, gave their lives for
their leader--Pomponius at the Porta Trigemina below the Aventine,
Laetorius in guarding the bridge which was the scene of the feat of
Horatius Cocles. As Caius passed people cheered him on, as if it was
a race in the games. He called for help, but no one helped him--for a
horse, but there was none at hand. One slave still kept up with him,
named Philocrates or Euporus. Hard pressed by their pursuers the two
entered the grove of Furina, and there the slave first slew Caius
and then himself. A wretch named Septimuleius cut off the head of
Gracchus; for a proclamation had been made that whosoever brought
the heads of the two leaders should receive their weight in gold.
Septimuleius, it is said, took out the brains and filled the cavity
with lead; but if he cheated Opimius, Opimius in his turn cheated
those who brought the head of Fulvius, for as they were of the lower
class he would pay them nothing. The story may be false; but Opimius
was subsequently convicted of selling his country's interests to
Jugurtha for money, so that with equal likelihood it may be true. In
the fight and afterwards he put to death 3,000 men, many of whom were
innocent, but whom he would not allow to speak in their defence. The
houses of Caius and Fulvius were sacked, and the property of the slain
was confiscated. Then the city was purified, and the ferocious knave
Opimius raised a temple to Concord, on which one night was found
written 'The work of Discord makes the temple of Concord.' That year
there was a famous vintage, and nearly two centuries afterwards there
was some wine which had been made at the time that Caius Gracchus
died. The wine, says the elder Pliny, tasted like and had the
consistency of bitterish honey. But the memory of the great tribune
has lasted longer than the wine, and will be honoured for ever by all
those who revere patriotism and admire genius. He for whom at the
last extremity friend and slave give their lives does not fall
ingloriously. Even for a life so noble such deaths are a sufficient
crown.
[Sidenote: The mother of the Gracchi.] The child of Caius did not long
survive him. The son of Tiberius died while a boy. Only Cornelia, the
worthy mother of the heroic brothers, remained. She could (according
to the purport of Plutarch's pathetic narrative) speak of them without
a sigh or tear; and those who concluded from this that her mind was
clouded by age or misfortune, were too dull themselves to comprehend
how a noble nature and noble training can support sorrow, for though
fate may often frustrate virtue, yet 'to bear is to conquer our fate.'
[Sidenote: Position of the nobles after the murder. Lex Maria.] The
nobles no doubt thought that, having got rid of Gracchus, they had
renewed their own lease of power. But they had only placed themselves
at the mercy of meaner men. The murderous scenes just related happened
in 121 B.C., and in 119 we read of a Lex Maria, the first law, that is
to say, promulgated by the destined scourge of the Roman aristocracy.
Every Roman could vote, and voted by ballot, and was eligible to
every office. The first law of Marius was to protect voters from the
solicitations of candidates for office. It is significant that the
nobles opposed it, though in the end it was carried. Stealthy intrigue
was now their safest weapon, but their power was tottering to its
fall. Too jealous of each other to submit to the supremacy of one, it
only remained for them to be overthrown by some leader of the popular
party, and the Republic was no more. Yet, as if smitten by judicial
blindness, they proceeded to hasten on their own ruin by reactionary
provocations to their opponents. [Sidenote: Gracchan laws remain in
force.] They dared not interfere with the corn law of Caius, for now
that every man had a vote, which he could give by ballot, they were
dependent on the suffrages of the mob. Neither dared they till
seventeen years later make an attempt to interfere with the selection
of the judices from the equestrian order, and even then the attempt
failed. The scheme of taxation in the province of Asia was also left
untouched. But what they dared to do they did. They prosecuted the
adherents of Gracchus. They recalled Popillius from exile. When
Opimius was arraigned for 'perduellio,' or misuse of his official
power to compass the death of a citizen, they procured his acquittal.
But when Carbo was accused of the same crime, they remembered that he
had been a partisan of Tiberius, though since a renegade, and would
not help him. So while Opimius got off, the champion of Opimius was
driven to commit suicide--a fitting close to a contemptible career.
[Sidenote: Reactionary legislation.] But they soon assailed measures
as well as men. The Lex Baebia appears to have secured those who had
actually established themselves at Carthage in their allotments; but
the Senate annulled the colonies which Caius had planned in Italy,
and, with one exception, Neptunia, broke up those already settled.
[Sidenote: The agrarian law annulled.] Then by three successive
enactments it got rid of the agrarian law, and plunged Italy again
into the decline from which by the help of that law she was emerging.
1. The occupiers were allowed again to sell their land. Tiberius had
expressly forbidden this, and now the rich at once began to buy out
the small owners, whom they often evicted by means more or less
foul. 2. A tribune named Borius, or Thorius, prohibited any further
distribution of land, thus knocking on the head the permanent
commission. These two laws were tantamount to handing over to the
rich in the city and the country the greater part of the public
land, giving them a legal title to it instead of the possession on
sufferance with which the Gracchi had interfered. The mouths of the
farmers were stopped by the pernicious but tempting permission to sell
their land. The people were cajoled by the vectigalia, which Drusus
had abolished, being reimposed, and the proceeds divided among
them. 3. Encouraged by the general acquiescence in these insidious
aggressions they induced a tribune, whose name is conjectured to have
been C. Baebius, to do away with the vectigalia altogether. [Sidenote:
Lex Thoria.] The date of this law, usually called the Thorian law, was
111 B.C. The real Thorian law was probably carried in 118 B.C. Between
these dates the rich would have been getting back the land from the
poor occupiers, and so, when the Senate abolished the vectigalia,
it was really pocketing them, and once for all and by a legal form
turning the public into private land. This law, which is here called
the Baebian law, Cicero ascribes to Spurius Thorius, who, he says,
freed the land from the vectigal. But as Appian says that Spurius
Borius imposed the vectigal, it is assumed that Cicero confused names,
that the Spurius Borius of Appian was Spurius Thorius, and that the
tribune whom Cicero calls Thorius was really quite another person.
However that may be, the law would benefit the rich, because the rich
would be owners of the land. Certain provisions of it were directly
meant to prevent opposition in the country. For if many of the poor
farmers would grumble at being ousted from their land, the land which
had been specially assigned to Latin towns, and of which Tiberius
Gracchus had threatened to dispossess them, was left in the same state
as before his legislation; that is to say, the Senate did not give
the occupiers an indefeasible title, but it did not meddle with
them. Moreover, it amply indemnified the Socii and Latini who had
surrendered land for the colonies of Caius, while some compensation
was given to poor farmers by a clause, that in future a man might only
graze ten large and fifty smaller beasts on the pastures of what still
remained public land. By this law the jurisdiction over land which had
been assigned by the triumvirs was given to the consuls, censors,
and praetors, the jurisdiction over cases in which disputes with the
publicani required settlement being granted to the consuls, praetors,
and, as such cases would occur chiefly in the provinces which were
mostly under propraetors, to propraetors also.
[Sidenote: Pernicious results of the reaction.] The results of this
reactionary legislation are partly summed up by Appian, when he
attributes to it a dearth of citizens, soldiers, and revenue. To our
eyes its effects are clearer still. Slave labour and slave-discontent,
'latifundia,' decrease of population, depreciation of the land,
received a fresh impetus, and the triumphant optimates pushed the
State step by step further down the road to ruin. For the end for
which they struggled was not the good of Italy, much less of the
world, but the supremacy of Rome in Italy, and of themselves in Rome.
Wealth and office were shared by an ever narrowing circle. Ten years
after the passing of the Baebian law, it was said that among all the
citizens there were only 2,000 wealthy families. And between the
years 123 and 109 B.C. four sons and probably two nephews of Quintus
Metellus gained the consulship, five of the six gained triumphs, and
one was censor, while he himself had filled all the highest offices
of the State. Thus, as Sallust says, the nobles passed on the chief
dignities from hand to hand.
There must have been many of the Gracchan party, now left without a
head, who burned for deliverance from such despicable masters. But
they were for the time disorganized and cowed. [Sidenote: Caius
Marius.] There was one man whom Scipio Aemilianus was said to have
pointed out in the Numantine war as capable, if he himself died, of
taking his place; and the rough soldier had already come forward as a
politician, on the one hand checking the optimates by protecting the
secrecy and efficiency of the ballot, and on the other defying the mob
by opposing a distribution of corn; but for the present no one could
tell how far he would or could go, and though he had already been made
praetor, the Metelli could as yet afford to despise him. The death of
Caius prolonged the Senate's misrule for twenty years. Twenty years
of shame at home and abroad--the turpitude of the Jugurthine war--a
second and more stubborn slave revolt in Sicily--the apparition of
the Northern hordes inflicting disaster after disaster upon the Roman
armies, which in 105 B.C. culminated in another and more appalling
Cannae--these things had yet to come about before the cup of the
Senate's infamy was full, and before those who had drawn the sword
against the Gracchi perished by the sword of Marius, impotent,
unpitied, and despised.
* * * * *