6. THE LEGISLATION OF GAIUS GRACCHUS
Gaius Gracchus, who had served on the land commission since 133 when he was only twenty-one years old, became one of Rome’s greatest orators.27 He displayed his oratorical ability when he supported Carbo’s proposal for reelection to the tribunate, opposed Pennus’ alien-act, expressed approval of Flaccus’ measure and defended himself against criticism by the censors for leaving Sardinia, where he served as quaestor in 126, when the command of his superior officer was prolonged; he also rebutted a charge of complicity in the revolt of Fregellae. Thus he was well known to the People who readily elected him tribune for 123, as one eager to continue and develop his brother’s policy. Unlike Tiberius, who came to grief on this very issue, Gaius was easily elected to a second tribunate for 122 and thus gained a longer period in which to initiate reform. The exact order of his measures and their assignment to 123 or 122 cannot in many cases be established, but apparently after a preliminary warning to the Senate he acted with a certain restraint and only brought up his heavy guns later.28 The Senate also showed moderation at first (unless its mildness arose from an inability to persuade any of Gaius’ colleagues in 123 to oppose him), but during 122 it used a tribune, Drusus, to undermine his position.
His first proposal was to prohibit any magistrate or tribune who had been deposed by the people from holding any further office; this would make tribunes more chary of submitting to senatorial control, and would have thrown a cloak of legitimacy over Octavius’ deposition, and in so far as it might suggest that the People could depose any magistrate who acted against their wishes it was potentially revolutionary. Since it also affected Octavius personally, Gaius was persuaded by his mother Cornelia to drop it. But he did not intend to be robbed of all revenge against Tiberius’ opponents. He carried a measure that declared illegal all courts with powers of capital punishment that were not established by the People. This was aimed at such tribunals as that set up by the Senate under Popillius to try Tiberius’ supporters. The measure was made retrospective: Popillius was impeached and driven into exile.
Gaius then turned to further economic reform. He re-enacted his brother’s agrarian bill, removing whatever limitations Aemilianus had imposed on the working of the commission.29 Since much of the land available had no doubt been distributed by this time, Gaius supplemented this bill with a plan to establish some colonies in Italy; though many of the colonists would be drawn from the very poor, some were to come from the middle classes in order to provide some capital for the promotion of industries in the colonies. Whereas the older Roman colonies had been primarily military centres and secondarily outlets for surplus population, now commercial motives were not overlooked. Two colonies were established in southern Italy, Minervia at Scolacium under the toe of Italy, and Neptunia near Tarentum; and others may have been planned. It is even possible that Gaius also thought of a colony on the site of Carthage as early as this (see below, p. 30). Stimulated partly perhaps by recent corn shortages in Africa and Sicily, he also carried a lex frumentaria. The State was to practice bulk-buying of corn, build warehouses to store it and then sell a monthly ration to any Roman citizen at a price slightly below the market-rate (at 6 1/3 asses a modius). This would reduce the variation in price from year to year caused by good and bad harvests, and prevent private profiteering in lean years. It would also help those waiting to go to allotments or colonies or those for whom such relief could not be found. This was a novel idea at Rome, but many Greek States had been accustomed to control their own corn-trade. Later Roman moralists sharply criticized Gaius for ‘demoralizing’ the people, but unjustly: he was not responsible for subsequent perversions of this practice into a dole and a political bribe. Other popular measures included one to construct some secondary roads in Italy which would provide employment and improve communications, and another to make conditions in the army better by enacting that the State should provide clothing and that boys under seventeen should not be enlisted.
The relative value that Gaius set upon his various reforms cannot be determined, but the question of the allies was clearly close to his heart, and he possibly proposed in 123 to extend Roman franchise to the Latins; if so, the attempt failed. To handle this burning matter successfully, he clearly would need further political support. It was therefore perhaps with this in mind that he tried to win help from the Equites, or he may merely have felt that they could usefully be given more political influence in order to form a more serious counter-weight to the Senate. Whatever his primary motive, he carried two measures which greatly benefited them: he gave them control first of the taxation of Asia, and later of the jury courts at Rome.30
He enacted that the right to collect taxes of the new province of Asia (a tithe, together with some customs and pasture dues) should be auctioned by the censors at Rome. Since the successful contractor paid a lump sum to the State, and then recovered this and his profit from collecting the taxes, only rich Equites would have sufficient capital to accept the contract. The proposal was in line with previous Roman policy, by which private individuals had been utilized in order to avoid creating a professional body of financial officials. But the measure, while helping to protect provincials from rapacious governors, gave the Equites more than a chance for further wealth: those who gained the contracts could not be prosecuted for extortion (a crime which only senators could commit), while any governor who tried to check them could, on some trumped-up charge, be brought before the quaestio perpetua de repetundis, the court in Rome that tried provincial governors on charges of extortion. And here, after Gaius’ second law in favour of the Equites, the jury would consist of members of that Order.
At first Gaius had probably mooted the idea of adding some 300 members of the equestrian order to the Senate and leaving the court in the hands of this enlarged Senate, but the suggestion was not accepted. Later, perhaps after the counter-attack by Drusus when the gulf between Gaius and the Senate had widened (p. 30), he sponsored a measure, which was moved probably by Acilius, to transfer the court from the Senate to the Equites.31 This had very far-reaching political effects. It gave the Equites influence over senatorial provincial governors (this would have been avoided, if his first scheme had been accepted). However, if trust can be placed in Cicero’s statement that the equestrian juries for some time did not succumb to the temptations that were open to them, Gracchus’ measure may be regarded as good in so far as it gave the equestrian order a position in the State more consonant with its importance, but bad in so far as it antagonized relations between it and the Senate and made control of the lawcourts a bone of contention for the next fifty years.
Gracchus also carried a measure ‘ne quis iudicio circumveniatur’. This has generally been regarded as a law against judicial corruption, making bribery of jurors a criminal offence and applying only to senators and not to Equites because it was passed before the court was transferred to the latter. But alternative interpretations are more probable.32
Another measure compelled the Senate, which decided to which provinces consuls should be sent (normally after their year of office in Rome), to fix the provinces before the consuls were elected instead of during their consulships. Thus the Senate could less easily reward its favourites with the best provinces, but since the provinces would now have to be allocated eighteen months in advance, the new arrangement would not make for efficiency. Gracchus may also have established some new dues (portoria) in Italian harbours, but, whatever his intentions, he probably did not alter the method of voting in the Comitia Centuriata.
7. THE OPPOSITION TO GAIUS GRACCHUS
During his second tribunate the Senate at last moved to the attack but at first by an indirect method. A tribune, M. Livius Drusus, was put up by the Senate to win over some of Gaius’ supporters by offering a number of attractive proposals designed to show that the Senate also was not unconcerned about reform. He suggested twelve colonies, each to consist of 3000 men with no property qualification; all allotments distributed since 1
33 were to be relieved of rent; and no Latin was to be liable to scourging, even on military service, a measure which might satisfy the demands of some of the allies and at the same time save the Roman people from sharing their advantages more widely. A commission was set up to implement these leges Liviae, but apparently it did little.33 The fact that the twelve colonies were not founded suggests that Drusus’ purpose was primarily to undermine Gracchus’ position rather than to accomplish genuine economic reform.
This opposition forced Gaius to more extreme measures. If he had not taken this action during his first tribunate, he now used a fellow-tribune named Rubrius to propose the foundation of a colony, to be called Junonia, on the site of Carthage, with allotments comprising up to 200 iugera for 6000 colonists with absolute ownership.34 Hitherto colonization had been confined to Italy, but if overseas colonization was a Greek idea which might appear sinister to conservative Roman minds, the offer was attractive to the people: the allotments were large; the district, which had been ravaged by a plague, needed reclaiming; the actual site of Punic Carthage, which the Romans had laid under a curse, was probably not embraced in the scheme; further, some Italians may have been included as colonists. Next (though the chronology and order of this and other measures must remain uncertain) Gaius probably carried his second law to help the Equites, described above (p. 29), and transferred the extortioncourt to them, a measure which may have been prompted by recent scandals when the juries were senatorial, but which had very serious effects. Finally, he decided to re-open the franchise question, this time on a wide basis: the Latins were to receive full Roman citizenship, and the rest of the allies Latin rights. Though helped by his fellow-tribune Fulvius Flaccus, who in his zeal for reform and the franchise question (p. 27) had not disdained to hold a tribunate after his consulship, Gaius was deserted by C. Fannius, whom he had helped to gain the consulship of 122.35 Fannius repaid him by undermining the franchise bill through working on the selfish interests of the voters in Rome and their jealousy of the allies. To prevent agitation, all allies (except perhaps the Latins) were forbidden to come within five miles of Rome when the bill was to be decided. It was defeated, perhaps vetoed by Drusus: Gaius no longer enjoyed such popular support as had allowed Tiberius to secure the deposition of a fellow-tribune.36
At some point Gaius was away from Rome for over two months, supervising the foundation of Junonia, and his opponents exploited his absence by spreading fantastic rumours of setbacks there in order to discredit the scheme. In any case his popularity was fast waning with the fickle urban mob and when the tribunician elections for 121 were held, he failed to win election for a third period. Thus at the end of 122 he was without office, apart from his land-commissionership. A tribune of 121, Minucius Rufus, then opened the attack by proposing the repeal of the lex Rubria. Gaius rallied his followers to oppose this and unwisely formed a bodyguard of friends. In a minor disturbance one of the servants of the consul Opimius was killed. This was at most murder, not revolution, but Opimius, who was bitterly hostile to Gracchus and had shown his harsh character in crushing the revolt of Fregellae, made the most of his opportunity. The Senate was persuaded to pass a resolution for the first time in history that the consuls should see to it that the Republic suffered no harm. Such a motion, later called the senatus consultum ultimum, warned the magistrates that the Senate regarded the situation as critical and, although it did not increase their constitutional powers, it assured them of the Senate’s moral support. Opimius then summoned to arms senators and Equites; even the latter responded, unmindful of Gracchus’ past benefactions to them. Gaius was reluctantly compelled to accept Flaccus’ determination to resist by force. The Gracchans occupied the Aventine: after vain negotiations they were soon defeated and killed. Opimius then rounded up and arrested 3000 survivors and supporters; these unfortunate men he executed without a trial. He is said to have rewarded men who brought him the heads of Gaius and Flaccus with their weight in gold. However that may be, he was ordered by the Senate to restore the Temple of Concord in the Forum at the foot of the Capitol which had been built by Camillus. The triumph of the Senate must have seemed complete.37
8. THE IMPORTANCE OF THE GRACCHI
The Gracchi were in a true sense martyrs: they had witnessed to their belief in the need for reform and they had suffered for their faith. Though not uninfluenced by Greek political ideas, they should not be regarded as would-be Greek tyrants, Fascist dictators or Marxist theorists. It is not certain, for instance, that Tiberius even objected to large estates as such, since his primary attack was upon the misuse of ager publicus for latifundia, while the reliance of the Gracchi on popular support does not prove that they aimed at prolonged personal predominance. They were later claimed as Populares but their motives were very different from many a later popularis. In fact their motives should be sharply distinguished from their methods. There is no good reason to deny that they aimed at disinterested social and economic reform. The wisdom they displayed in seeking this end is more open to question. It is impossible today to assess the situation in 133 with accuracy: it would appear that Tiberius’ challenge to the Senate was unnecessarily provocative and ill-judged and that patience and negotiation might have achieved more, but we cannot really tell. But if Tiberius’ conduct seems rash and shortsighted, the use of force by the Senate was still less justifiable. Gaius, who was temperamentally more aggressive than his brother, was obviously ready to go to greater lengths, but he was forced into his extreme position only by the uncompromising attitude of the Senate which had perhaps more reason to mistrust his ultimate motives in view of the breadth of his appeal. But clearly his death was due to the Senate’s selfishness in refusing to face the urgent needs of the day, combined with the selfishness of the People who brought to nought his generous plans for Italy as a whole; and whatever may be thought of the Senate’s appeal to force as such, nothing can excuse the barbarity of the methods which it condoned in the brutal agent whom it permitted to apply that force.
The Gracchi achieved some direct results. Though many of the economic difficulties remained, they at least helped to relieve, if not to solve, them. Many small farmers and colonists were set up, and to that extent the unemployment problem was alleviated. But the indirect results of their activities were the more important. The Italians were embittered, the Equites more self-conscious as a political force, the People had learned something of its powers, a new aspect of the tribunate was displayed, and above all the weakness of the Senate was revealed. This challenge to the traditional government of Rome without the creation of any adequate alternative – since the Concilium Plebis was unfitted to form the organ of a true democracy – must lead to disaster. The tempo and temper of political life were heightened. Whether or not the Gracchi should be regarded as revolutionaries, without doubt they precipitated the revolution that overthrew the Republic.
9. FOREIGN AFFAIRS: ASIA AND GAUL
While the Senate was contending against the Gracchi, campaigns overseas resulted in the establishment of two new provinces: Asia and Gallia Transalpina or Narbonensis.
For many years the kingdom of Pergamum had lain under Rome’s shadow, unable to take an independent line. Its king, Attalus III, who both lacked an heir and had to face some social unrest in his realm, tried to minimize the risk of political or social disturbances after his death by making the Roman people his heir. When he died in 133 Rome accepted the legacy and decided to take over this rich country which might prove profitable both to senatorial governors and Roman business-men. It was also highly opportune for Tiberius Gracchus, who proposed to appropriate some of the king’s treasure in order to help finance his new settlers (p. 23). Before the end of 133 Rome had ratified the king’s will and had sent out a commission of five senators under Scipio Nasica (p. 25), but any arrangements that they hoped to make were upset by a revolt led by Aristonicus, an illegitimate son of Attalus’ predecessor Eumenes, against whom they could only summon help from the neighbouring rulers of Pontus, Bith
ynia, Paphlagonia and Cappadocia. At first Aristonicus appealed to the nationalistic longings of the Greek cities of Asia Minor and their desire for independence, but when this hope was disappointed he turned to the native population of the interior to whom he held out hopes of social betterment: he proposed to free serfs and slaves and to found a Utopian State called the City of the Sun, where all should be free and equal. He was joined by Blossius who had escaped from Rome after Tiberius’ death. The first Roman army sent against him in 131 was led by Licinius Crassus (the father-in-law of Gaius Gracchus), who achieved little and was killed. His successor M. Perperna (cos. 130), however, secured the defeat and capture of Aristonicus, but did not live to complete the settlement which was arranged by Manius Aquilius (cos. 129) with a senatorial commission.
The main part of Attalus’ kingdom was annexed as a new Roman province called Asia, and the road system was developed by Aquilius. Some of the less fertile eastern districts were handed back to local rulers (e.g. Lycaonia to the king of Cappadocia) but the fate of Greater Phrygia remained unsettled for over a decade when it was finally organized into a League. Within the new province some of the Greek cities, including Pergamum itself, were to be free (liberae), though the cities which had rebelled probably had to pay tribute. Gaius Gracchus, however, then re-organized the taxation-system and established a tithe on arable land and pasture dues: this he probably extended to all cities, subject and free (cf. p. 29). Many of the cities enjoyed local self-government, but for judicial purposes circuits (conventus) were established, and though Rome may not have interfered directly in the cities’ internal affairs, these would tend gradually to conform with those of Rome.38
From the Gracchi to Nero: A History of Rome from 133 B.C. to A.D. 68 Page 8