23 SCIPIO’S DEATH. For a lively discussion of ‘Whodunnit’ see J. Carcopino, op. cit., ch. iii. A fragment from Laelius’ funeral oration for Scipio may suggest a natural death: Malcovati, ORF2, p. 121; cf. E. Badian, JRS, 1956, 220. [p. 27]
24 PENNUS’ EDICT. E. Badian has pointed out (For. Cl., 177) that Pennus’ bill must fall in the early months of 126 (not 125), since it was attacked by Gaius Gracchus who left Rome in 126 for a two-years’ quaestorship in Sardinia. Attempts, which have been made to link this measure with Flaccus’ citizenship bill of 126, are viewed with caution by D. Stockton, The Gracchi (1979), 94 f. [p. 27]
25 FLACCUS. It is often said that the People, unwilling to share their advantages with the allies, failed to support Flaccus, who was thus more easily persuaded by the Senate to go to Gaul. But E. Badian (For. Cl., 178) accepts Appian’s statement that the Roman People supported Flaccus and believes that their opposition to Italian enfranchisement was not yet strongly developed. See also Badian, Dialoghi di Archeologia IV–V (1970–71), 391 ff. On Flaccus’ motives see U. Hall, Athenaeum, 1977, 280 ff.; on his career see W. L. Reiter, Athenaeum, 1978, 125 ff. [p. 27]
26 FREGELLAE. For the possibility that Fregellae was not popular with other Latin states see E. Badian, Cl. Rev., 1955, 23 (but contrast E. Malcovati, Athenaeum, 1955, 137 ff.). Many Samnites and Paelignians, who spoke Oscan, had migrated to Fregellae in the second century. Since the Romans disliked ‘Oscans’, this may help to explain their ruthlessness: cf. E. T. Salmon, Phoenix, 1962, 110. E. Badian (Dialoghi di Archeologia IV–V (1970–71), 389 ff.) regards the revolt of Fregellae as due to special local causes and not a symptom of a widespread discontent among the Latins. It was probably at this time (cf. G. Tibiletti, Rend. dell’Istituto Lomb. 1953, 57 f.) that a measure was passed which granted Roman citizenship to all magistrates in Latin colonies (cf. p. 17), thus strengthening the loyalty of the local governing class to Rome. [p. 27]
27 GAIUS’ SPEECHES. For the surviving fragments see H. Malcovati, Oratorum Romanorum Fragmenta, 2nd ed. 1955. [p. 27]
28 GAIUS’ LEGISLATION. On the chronology see H. Last, CAH, IX, 49 ff. and n. 34 below; also D. Stockton, The Gracchi (1979), 226 ff. Confusion may have arisen because Appian has put into Gaius’ second tribunate some of the measures that may really belong to that part of his first tribunate that fell after his election to his second term, i.e. July to Dec. 123. Cf. Badian (For. Cl., 181): the year 123 ‘produces the impression of a lull’. On the other hand P. A. Brunt (in Seager, Crisis, 146 ff.) argues, against Last’s view, that Gracchus’ judiciary law and indeed most of his legislation should be placed in the first half of 123, i.e. he ‘tried to consolidate support among all classes outside the Senate at the very beginning of his tribunician career, and his projects of reform apart from his rogatio de sociis (which, as he must have known, was more likely to alienate than secure goodwill), were launched at once’. U. Hall, Athenaeum, 1972, 2 ff., believes that no law to legalize the re-election of tribunes can be assigned to the Gracchans and that in 123 Gaius at first did not consider himself as a candidate for re-election. If so, he may have tried to push through much legislation early in 123. On his re-election see also D. Stockton, The Gracchi (1979), 169 ff. [p. 28]
29 LEX AGRARIA. The statement of a writer on field-surveying (gromaticus) of unknown date, named Siculus Flaccus, that Gaius enacted that no one should possess more than 200 iugera in Italy, can scarcely mean that Gaius reduced the 500 to 200 iugera, nor is Carcopino’s view likely that the size of the allotments was raised from 30 to 200 iugera. Possibly the reference is to allotments in colonies. See A. R. Hands, Mnemosyne, 1976, 176 ff. D. Stockton, The Gracchi (1979), 132 ff., argues that Gaius’ law empowered the commissioners to dispose of public land outside Italy as well as within and envisaged founding colonies as well as viritim assignments. [p. 28]
30 THE EQUITES. Cf. R. J. Rowlands, ‘C. Gracchus and the Equites’, TAPA, 1965, 361 ff., who believes that Gracchus deliberately aimed at weakening the Senate and strengthening the Equites (and helping the lower classes) and thus hoped to reform the constitution on the lines of the Polybian mixed constitution. Rowlands has also argued (Phoenix, 1969, 372 ff.) that in 123 Gaius had the support in the Senate not only of the old followers of his brother but also some of Aemilianus’ old associates, but the latter abandoned him when in 122 he proceded to more extreme measures. [p. 29].
31 GRACCHUS’ LEX IUDICIARIA. The view that Gracchus’ legislation on the juries in the quaestio de rebus repetundis fell into two stages (as, e.g., H. Last in CAH, X) has recently been upheld by A. H. M. Jones (Proc. Cambr. Philological Soc., 1960, 39 ff.). Although he rejects two of the arguments on which this view rested, he has strengthened the third; he believes that the curious figure of 450 jurors, mentioned in the Naples Tablet (see below), was taken over from a previous law. This cannot have been the lex Calpurnia of 149, but will have been Gracchus’ first proposal (to add Equites to the Senate) and should be identified with a mysterious lex Iunia which will have been promulgated or passed in 123 B.C. As to the main law, carried in 122, a large part of a lex de rebus repetundis survives on a bronze tablet from Naples (sometimes referred to as the Tabula Bembina because of its association with Cardinal Bembo) and there can be little reasonable doubt that it is part of Gracchus’ law. (Text in Riccobono, Fontes Iuris Romani AnteJustiniani, i. 94 ff., E. H. Warmington, Remains of Old Latin, iv, 317 ff.; E. G. Hardy, Six Roman Laws, 1 ff.) The attempt by J. Carcopino to identify it with the law of Glaucia (on which see below) has been adequately rejected by J. P. V. D. Balsdon in a valuable paper (Papers Brit. Sch. Rome, 1938, 98 ff. = Seager, Crisis, 132 ff.) on the history of the extortion-court. In two passages Cicero (1 Verr. 51; 2 Verr. i, 26) refers to a Lex Acilia Repetundarum, which has generally been identified with Gracchus’ law (e.g. by Mommsen and Last). In a discussion of the leges de repetundis G. Tibiletti (Athenaeum, 1953, pp. 5 ff.) denied this and, though accepting the identification of the Naples inscription with the law of Gracchus, has supposed the lex Acilia to be a measure of lesser importance of c. III B.C. E. Badian, however, has successfully defended the identification of the lex Acilia with the inscription (AJP, 1954, 374 ff. and 1975, 67 ff.).
The debate continues. E. S. Gruen, who accepts the identification of the Naples tablet with the Lex Acilia as part of Gracchus’ legislation, has rejected Jones’ view of the Lex Iunia (Rom. Pol., 293 f.) and also the attempt by A. R. Hands (Latomus, 1965, 225 ff.) to represent the lex Acilia as an anti-Gracchan measure. The interpretation of C. Nicolet (L’Ordre Équestre (1966), 109 ff., 482 ff.) is precisely opposite to that of Hands: Gracchus sponsored the lex repetundarum but his enemies proposed enrolling Equites in the Senate; see against this Gruen, 295 f. Finally, P. A. Brunt (see Seager, Crisis, 107 ff.) argues that Gracchus’ legislation covered more than the quaestio de repetundis and deprived Senators of other judicial functions: all the latter, both civil and criminal, were to be dealt with by a mixed panel of senators and Equites. The evidence, however, for the existence of permanent quaestiones, other than the de repetundis, at the time of Gracchus is frail (but see also Brunt, Tijdschrift voor Rechtsgeschiedenis, 1964, 444 ff. in an important review of W. Kunkel, Untersuchungen zur Entwicklung des röm. Kriminalverfahrens in vorsullanischer Zeit). Brunt also would date the judiciary legislation to the first half of 123 (cf. above n. 28). See now also D. Stockton, The Gracchi (1979), 138 ff., 230 ff., who believes that Gaius passed a general lex iudiciaria as well as a lex de pecuniis repetundis (and that the inscription is the repetundae law of Gaius and more likely than not is a lex Acilia).
H. B. Mattingly, JRS, 1969, 129 ff., has attempted to rearrange the fragments of Tabula Bembina and to relate them to the fragmentary law from Tarentum (on which see ch. III, n. 18). In JRS, 1970, 154 ff. and Cl. Qu., 1974, 255 ff., he adduces some complicated arguments to suggest that the Tabula Bembina is not the law of Gaius Gracchus but is identical with the law of the Tabula Tarentina and is likely to have been the law of Servilius Glaucia (on
which see ch. III, n. 19). This view is refuted by A. N. Sherwin-White (JRS, 1972, 83 ff.) who reaffirms the usual view that the Tabula Bembina is the Gracchan law.
In the inscription unfortunately the passage that should give the positive qualifications of the jurors is missing, but the law contains many interesting details about procedure in the court. On procedure see M. I. Henderson, JRS, 1951, 71 ff. and A. N. Sherwin-White, JRS, 1952, 43 ff. The law fixed (though possibly not for the first time: cf. Nicolet, op. cit., 47 ff.) the equestrian census, i.e. the minimum qualification for enrolment in the Ordo; the figure was probably 400,000 sesterces. On the Equites see above p. 8 f. and the literature cited in ch. I, n. 9. The jurors were first known as iudices, but apparently soon (sometime between 122 and 88) they claimed or acquired the title Equites. The use of Equites in Cicero’s day is obscure; in general terms it meant all free-born Roman citizens who were not senators and who were worth at least 400,000 sesterces. The equestrian jurors were either distinct from the equestrian centuries which were still limited to 1800 iuniores or else, as argued by M. I. Henderson (JRS, 1963, 61 ff. = Seager, Crisis, 69 ff.), the equestrian centuries no longer were limited to 1800 members and the mere census qualification allowed a citizen to call himself an eques Romanus. Cf. also E. Badian’s remarks (Roman Imperialism in the Late Republic2 (1968), vii ff.). [p. 29]
32 NE QUIS IUDICIO CIRCUMVENIATUR. N. J. Miners has argued (Cl. Qu., 1958, 241 ff.) that this law was directed against senators who conspired to secure a false condemnation of a Roman citizen on a capital charge. U. Ewins (JRS, 1960, 94 ff.) also dissociates it from the extortion court: rather, it was designed to prevent unfair use of judicial powers by senators against the people; although similar in object to the lex Sempronia de provocatione (Miners, following Mommsen, would identify the two laws), it will have been a separate law. (It will also have been adapted by the younger Drusus in 91 to cover bribery by Equites.) See also A. H. M. Jones, op. cit. in n. 31. The provision which excluded Equites from the ambit of the bill makes better sense if the bill was directed not against the quaestio de repetundis, which Gracchus at some point handed over to the Equites, but against the special tribunals which his Lex Sempronia de provocatione established: though such courts could now be set up only on the authority of the People, they would be manned by members of the senatorial class and ‘Gracchus, from the experience of 132, was worried about senators, not equites’ (Gruen, Rom. Pol., 86). [p. 30]
33 DRUSUS’ LEGISLATION. A passage of Sallust (Iug. 69. 4) has often been taken (see H. Last, CAH, X, 72) as implying that Drusus’ measure protecting the Latins was carried out. But see E. Badian, For. Cl., 190 and below ch. III n. 17. [p. 30]
34 LEX RUBRIA. References in Livy, Plutarch and Appian suggest that Rubrius was tribune in 122, though other writers assign his tribunate to 123. In support of 122 see H. Last, CAH, IX, 891. One of the strongest arguments for 122 has been a reference in an inscription from Astypalaea (Greenidge, Sources2, 84) to a lex Rubria Acilia (thus if Acilius was tribune in 122, cf. n. 31 above, then Rubrius must have been also). But Tibiletti (op. cit.) has argued that the phrase in the inscription must refer not to a joint law but to two laws, one carried by Rubrius and the other by Acilius, and that therefore the men were tribunes in different years. If this argument is accepted (as it is by Badian, op. cit.) and the possibility is excluded that they carried two laws in the same year, and if Acilius belongs to 122, then Rubrius’ law to found Junonia would belong to 123. See E. Badian, For. Cl. 300 f., but he now (Historia, 1962, 206, n. 31 = Seager, Crisis, 12) doubts the identity of the Rubrius of the inscription with the founder of Junonia. A large area in N.E. Tunisia still shows traces of the division of the land into units (centuriae) of 200 iugera each; part of this may represent allotments at Junonia: see J. Bradford, Ancient Landscapes (1957), 197 ff. and pl. 48; R. Chevallier, Mélanges d’arch., 1958, 61 ff.; K. Johannsen, Die lex agraria des Jahres 111 v. Chr. (Munich Dissertation, 1971), 341 ff. On the rural centuriation by Gaius and the urban grid system of the Augustan colony of Carthage, see E. M. Wightman, New Light on ancient Carthage (1980, ed. by J. G. Pedley), 34 ff. [p. 30]
35 FANNIUS. E. S. Gruen (Rom. Pol., 93) thinks that Fannius was never closely attached to the Gracchi: his earlier connexions were with the Scipionic group. C. Gracchus supported his candidature for 122 only in default of better candidates (L. Opimius was certainly worse). [p. 31]
36 THE FRANCHISE BILL. E. Badian (For. Cl., 185 ff., 299 ff.) has argued that Gracchus proposed only one lex de sociis, which was vetoed by Drusus (Dec. 123–Jan. 122); Gracchus then left for Africa. With the help of the renegade consul Fannius, Drusus developed his programme, which was to stir up the Roman people (hitherto not much concerned by proposals in favour of the allies) against the Italians, and secondly to split the Italians by setting the Latins against the rest. Thus when Gracchus on his return to Rome promulgated his bill, it was defeated. K. Meister, Chiron, 1976, 113 ff., argues for a rogatio of Gaius (mid 122) which granted Roman rights to Latins, but only voting rights (not Latin rights) to the other allies. [p. 31]
37 FAMILY FORTUNES. E. S. Gruen (Rom. Pol., 98) writes: ‘The slaughter of the Gracchani entailed the final demise of the old Claudio-Fulvian group … The Sempronii Gracchi vanish from the pages of Republican history. The Fulvii never again held curule office in Rome. The proud patrician Claudii turn up again only as hangers-on of a more powerful political group.’ [p. 32]
38 ASIA AND ARISTONICUS. On Aristonicus see F. C. Thomes, La rivolta di Aristonico e le origini della provincia Romana d’Asia (1969); Z. Rubinsohn, Rendiconti dell’Ist. Lomb., 1973. 546 ff.; C. Delplace, Athenaeum, 1978, 20 ff.; J. Hopp, Untersuchungen zur Geschichte des letzen Attaliden (1977); on the commission under Scipio Nasica in 133–2 see B. Schleussner, Chiron, 1976, 97 ff. For Asia under the Romans see D. Magie, The Roman Rule in Asia Minor (1950); for the settlement of the province A. H. M. Jones, Cities of the Eastern Roman Provinces (1971), 57 ff.; see also A. N. Sherwin-White, JRS, 1977, 62 ff. for Roman involvement in Asia Minor from 167 to 88 B.C. (66 ff. for the inheritance of Attalus). Details of the terms of Attalus’ will are obscure. The city of Pergamum itself and probably some of the Greek cities on the coast were to be free. Translations of three inscriptions relating to Rome’s settlement will be found in Lewis and Reinhold, Roman Civilization, I, 321 ff. One (OGIS, 338; Greenidge, Sources2, p. 9) is a decree of Pergamum passed before Rome had ratified the will; another (OGIS 435, Sherk, Roman Documents from the Greek East (1969), n. 11; cf. T. Drew-Bear, Historia, 1972, 75 ff.) confirms an earlier decree of the Senate, probably of 133, regarding the settlement (cf. Sherwin-White, JRS, 1977, 68; and a third (Dittenberger, Sylloge 694) is a decree celebrating the grant of the status of Rome’s ally to a city, probably Pergamum, for its help against Aristonicus. Mithridates of Pontus later claimed that the Romans had forged Attalus’ will (Sallust, Hist. iv, 69M), but wrongly, as is shown by OGIS 338. We also have two fragmentary copies of a Senatus Consultum de agro Pergameno (Sherk, n. 2; Greenidge and Clay, p. 278) which is usually dated to 129 B.C. (though see H. Mattingly, AJP, 1972, 412 ff.): the consuls and a large advisory body heard a dispute between some publicani and Pergamum concerning some boundaries, presumably when the publicani tried to collect some of the taxes on the public land which had been sold by the censors of 131. The Pergamenes apparently won their case. Cf. E. Badian, Publicans and Sinners (1972), 60, 132. – The attempt by Carcopino to show that Attalus died after Tiberius and therefore to disprove the account (not recorded by Appian) of Tiberius’ use of the legacy, has generally been rejected – Aristonicus’ revolt is likely to have started on a serious scale only late in 133 or in 132. The extent of his initial successes is doubtful: probably southwards to Mysia but not to Caria, and possibly northwards to Cyzicus. – A small group of Pergamene coins (cistophori), which bear the title ‘King’, are to be referred to the pretender Aristonicus and illustrate his claim to be heir of the Attalids (cf. the coinage of Eunus in Sicily: ch. I, n. 15): see
E. S. G. Robinson, Numismatic Chronicle, 1954, pp. 1 ff. On further problems arising from the coinage see E. Badian, JRS, 1980, 202; J. P. Adams, Historia, 1981, 302 ff. – Greater Phrygia was claimed by the kings of Pontus and Bithynia. Aquilius, who is alleged to have received the larger bribe from the former, was granted a triumph but was later tried before the senatorial quaestio de repetundis; but he was acquitted, and Gaius Gracchus cited this scandal in justification for transferring the court to the Equites. [p. 33]
39 GAUL. Contradictions in the sources make many details of the campaigns in Gaul uncertain. See C. Jullian, Histoire de la Gaule, III, 1 ff.; J. Carcopino, Histoire Romaine, II, 275 ff.; C. H. Benedict, ‘The Romans in southern Gaul’, AJP, 1942, 38 ff., and A History of Narbo (1941), ch. i. For the milestone see Degrassi, Inscr. Lat. Lib. Rei Publ. n. 460a; Greenidge, Sources2, 49: this suggests the possibility that Domitius continued as proconsul till 118 and that his triumph was delayed till then. An inscription from Olympia records men from Achaean cities serving under Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus against Galatae; almost certainly in these campaigns: see J. Reynolds, JRS, 1966, 118. E. Badian has argued (For. Cl., 264, n. 3, and 287 f., and more fully in Melanges Piganiol (1966), 901 ff.) that Gaul was not established as a province (i.e. formally became a sphere to which a Roman magistrate was annually appointed as governor) until near the end of the century after Marius’ victories over the Germans. C. Ebel, Transalpine Gaul: the Emergence of the Roman Province (1976), argues for a Roman protectorate and virtual de facto province in southern Gaul from the early second century, but see J. Richardson, JRS, 1979, 157 f. On the continuing interest in, and patronage of, Gaul by the Domitii and Licinii see E. Badian, For. Cl., 264 f. [p. 34]
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