The Storm Before the Storm

by Michael Duncan

  But a crisis in Spain helped Mummius break the streak that had seen no novus homo elected consul for a generation. The Senate assigned Mummius the task of restoring order in Further Spain, which was reeling from a revolt by the native Lusitanians. Marching into the interior, Mummius located the main body of Lusitanians and drove them back, but his army lost cohesion while chasing the rebels, allowing the Lusitanians to turn the tables. Mummius was forced to retreat all the way back to the coast. Undaunted, Mummius regrouped and then proceeded to best the Lusitanians repeatedly. By the end of the year, he was sitting on top of a pile of slaves and plunder. For his victories, the Senate and the People of Rome awarded Mummius a triumph—a rare enough honor to begin with, almost never granted to a novus homo.33

  The triumph was not just an honor; it was the ultimate in Roman political pageantry. A returning general would enter Rome along with his victorious troops and the spoils of war and follow a ritualized path to the Temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline Hill. Along the way the citizens of Rome would behold the gold, silver, jewels, exotic artifacts, trophies, and slaves accumulated by the legions during the campaign. When the parade was over the triumphant general often hosted banquets and games—the more memorable and exotic, the better. Every Roman leader jockeyed to be awarded a triumph, but not everyone got one. It is a testament to Mummius’s ability and political connections that this novus homo paraded through Rome in triumph. If Mummius decided to run for consul, his name was now known far and wide.34

  IF THE NOVUS homo Mummius needed methodical and steady steps to climb the cursus honorum, the patrician nobile Scipio Aemilianus simply breezed along without a care in the world. Aemilianus was elected quaestor around 155, but prior to his consulship that was the only official magistracy he held. In 151, he volunteered to accompany the consul to Spain, where further revolts necessitated continued military engagement. While in Spain Aemilianus developed a reputation for courage and physical prowess. Once he received an award for being first over an enemy wall; another time he rescued three cohorts of trapped legionaries, and then later he defeated a boastful Spanish warrior in single combat. This was the resume of a dashing young hero, and the Romans delighted in his exploits.35

  As Aemilianus’s popularity grew, his destiny came into focus as the sleeping giant of Carthage woke from its fifty-year slumber. In 152, the aging Cato the Elder traveled to Carthage to arbitrate a dispute and was appalled at how splendid and wealthy Carthage had become since the end of the Punic Wars. Detecting newfound self-confidence, Cato returned to Rome and advocated immediate war to prevent the Carthaginians from ever again threatening Rome. In every speech he subsequently delivered in the Senate—no matter the topic—Cato famously concluded by saying, “furthermore Carthage must be destroyed.” The Senate finally succumbed to Cato’s nagging, and in 150 they found the pretext to attack. But the defensive fortifications of Carthage were impressive, and instead of destroying the city quickly the Romans found themselves mired in a two-year-long siege.36

  Promised a quick and easy war, the citizens of Rome grew impatient at the Senate’s inability to finish the job. In 148 they went looking for a new leader. As the consular elections approached, a movement to draft the popular Scipio Aemilianus broke out in Rome. But there was a problem: Aemilianus was both too young for the job and had never served a magistracy higher than quaestor. According to both the letter and spirit of the law, Aemilianus was ineligible for the consulship. But the power of the Assembly was vast and by simple majority vote they suspended the qualifications, elected Aemilianus consul, and then dispatched him to Carthage. After arriving in the spring of 147, Aemilianus set to work putting the city to a methodical siege. He walled off the harbor to prevent Carthaginian boats from slipping the Roman blockade and built extensive siege works to finally bring the city to its knees.37

  THE YEAR AFTER Aemilianus’s irregular consular election saw another irregular election as Lucius Mummius prepared to do the impossible. Helped by noble patrons and buoyed by the memory of his triumph, Mummius ran for the consulship of 146. It had been a full generation since the nobility let even a single ounce of new blood into their body, but Mummius was deemed worthy of the honor. When he won the consulship he was the first novus homo consul in almost forty years.38

  The Senate dispatched newly minted consul Mummius to Greece, where Roman hegemony was once again being challenged. Since their victory over Macedon in 168, the Senate continued to play an influential but detached role in Greek affairs, acting as impartial arbitrators of political and economic disputes between various cities and kingdoms. But though the cities of the Greek east often sought Roman arbitration and guidance, that did not mean it always respected the Senate’s decrees. In 148, envoys from the Achaean League—an alliance of cities in central Greece—petitioned Rome to prevent disgruntled members of the league from leaving the alliance. But when the Senate decreed that any city choosing to withdraw could do so, the leaders of the Achaean League launched a war to stop the Senate’s will from being enforced. Of this inevitably doomed bid, the geographer Pausanias said, “Audacity combined with weakness should be called madness.”39

  As if that was not enough, just as war in Greece was brewing a pretender to the Macedonian throne launched a campaign to restore the Kingdom of Macedon. When word of this latest threat from Macedon reached Rome, the Senate dispatched the praetor Quintus Caecilius Metellus, who made quick work of the Macedonian army—forever earning Metellus the cognomen “Macedonicus.” After this latest Macedonian uprising Rome decided they had had enough of Macedonian uprisings. Instead of returning sovereignty to the native inhabitants, the Senate annexed the whole region and created a new province of the Roman Republic called Macedonia.40

  But while the Macedonians were crushed, down in Greece the Achaeans still held out. When Lucius Mummius arrived in the spring of 146, he found the last intransigent Achaeans holed up in Corinth. Mummius took over the siege and prepared for a massive final assault. Knowing they would not be able to withstand an attack, most of the Corinthians escaped out the back. Mummius allowed the inhabitants to flee, and when the city was mostly empty, he ordered his legions to break down the gates. Likely acting on senatorial instructions, Mummius ordered his men to collect every valuable object they could find, kill or enslave any residents they came across, and then systematically demolish the city.41

  When word came back of Corinth’s destruction, the Senate dispatched a commission to Greece to settle affairs in the east for all time. After fifty years of trying to maintain the pretense of Greek liberty, the Romans finally gave up. Greece was merged with Macedon into the single Roman province of Macedonia. Greek liberty was dead. The Romans now ruled.42

  BACK IN NORTH Africa, the Romans prepared for final victory over their greatest enemy. After a year of careful preparation, Aemilianus launched the final assault on Carthage in the spring of 146. The legions breached the walls and rushed into the city, but it took a week of bitter house-to-house fighting to subdue the last Carthaginian holdouts. When the city was finally conquered, Aemilianus likely acted on the same set of instructions that had been given to Mummius. He stripped the city of its wealth, enslaved any fighters left alive, and forcibly moved the remaining inhabitants inland. He then ordered Carthage put to flame. Soon enough a senatorial commission would arrive to annex Carthaginian territory into the domains of Rome and create a new province called Africa.43

  But as he stood watching Carthage burn, Scipio Aemilianus reflected on the fate of this once great power. Overcome with emotion, he cried. His friend and mentor Polybius approached and asked why Aemilianus was crying—what better outcome could any man hope for? Aemilianus replied, “A glorious moment, Polybius; but I have a dread foreboding that some day the same doom will be pronounced on my own country.” According to Roman tradition Aemilianus then quoted a line from Homer: “A day will come when sacred Troy shall perish, And Priam and his people shall be slain.” Aemilianus knew that no power endures indefinitely, that
all empires must fall, and that there is nothing mortals can do about it.44

  CHAPTER 1

  THE BEASTS OF ITALY

  Thieves of private property pass their lives in chains; thieves of public property in riches and luxury.

  CATO THE ELDER1

  TIBERIUS SEMPRONIUS GRACCHUS WAS WATCHING AS CARTHAGE burned. In 146 BC the teenager was on his first campaign and serving under the famous commander Scipio Aemilianus—a typical posting for the scion of an illustrious family. And the Gracchi were an illustrious family. First ennobled by Tiberius’s great-grandfather, the family had risen in stature with each generation, culminating with Tiberius’s father, whom Livy called “by far the ablest and most energetic young man of his time.” Over the course of his storied career, Gracchus the Elder served two consulships and was awarded two triumphs. Though his father died when Tiberius was just ten years old, the boy knew his father’s exploits well. He knew he had much to live up to.2

  Tiberius’s mother, Cornelia, was herself one of the most respected matrons in Roman history. She was the daughter of Scipio Africanus and wielded enormous influence inside the extended Scipione family. After her husband, Gracchus the Elder, died in 154, Cornelia elected not to remarry—even turning down a marriage proposal from the king of Egypt—and instead dedicated herself to Tiberius and her other son, Gaius. She cultivated their education and hired renowned Greek tutors to expose the boys to the most advanced theories of the age. In an apocryphal but telling story, a wealthy noblewoman once showed off a set of beautiful jewels to Cornelia, who herself pointed to Tiberius and his younger brother Gaius and said, “Those are my jewels.”3

  As he grew to maturity, young Tiberius was admired for his intelligence and dignity. He was possessed of “brilliant intellect, of upright intentions, and… the highest virtues of which a man is capable when favored by nature and by training.” A generous spirit and eloquent speaker, Tiberius was on track to meet the high standards set by his father and become the leading man of his time.4

  To keep the family fortunes under one house, Cornelia arranged for her daughter Sempronia to marry her adopted nephew Aemilianus—even though she did not like Aemilianus personally. Cornelia found him pretentious and did not think him worthy of the honor of being head of the family. In fact, much of Cornelia’s focus on her children was an effort to keep Aemilianus from outshining her jewels. She pushed her sons’ ambitions by reminding them that the Romans still called her the mother-in-law of Aemilianus, but not yet mother of the Gracchi.5

  Despite all this family drama Aemilianus was obligated to bring his teenage brother-in-law Tiberius to the siege of Carthage. In Africa, Tiberius was exposed to the basics of military life. By all accounts he performed well as a soldier, earned the respect of the men, and even won a coveted award for being the first man over an enemy wall. When Carthage fell in 146, Tiberius Gracchus was there to watch the city burn.6

  After Tiberius returned from North Africa, Cornelia maneuvered him into a marriage with the daughter of Appius Claudius Pulcher. Tiberius’s new father-in-law came from one of the oldest patrician families in the Republic and had recently been named princeps senatus—a prestigious position that meant he was listed at the top of the senatorial roll and was allowed to speak first in any debate. But the marriage was not without complications: Claudius was a bitter opponent of Scipio Aemilianus, and Tiberius was now caught in the middle of their rivalry. But that said, by his early twenties Tiberius was positioned to achieve a preeminence that might even surpass his father. He was well educated, well connected, and already recognized as a man with “great force of character, eloquence, and dignity.” But unlike most Romans, Tiberius would not win fame on the battlefield fighting a foreign enemy. Instead he would win fame in the Forum combating the domestic threat of skyrocketing economic inequality.7

  AFTER THE SECOND Punic War ended in 202 BC, the economy of Italy endured a massive upheaval. The legions that conquered Spain, Greece, and North Africa returned home with riches on an unprecedented scale. A proconsul returned from a campaign in the east bearing 137,420 pounds of raw silver, 600,000 silver pieces, and 140,000 gold pieces. Tiberius’s own father returned from a campaign in Spain with 40,000 pounds of raw silver. This was an insane load of treasure that would have been unimaginable to the frugal and austere Romans of the early Republic. But by the middle of the second century BC, Rome was rolling in the Mediterranean’s dough.8

  The newly enriched Romans spent their money on a variety of luxuries: fine carpets, ornate silverware, embellished furniture, and jewelry made of gold, silver, and ivory. The effect of this influx of wealth began to concern some alert senators. As early as 195, Cato the Elder warned his colleagues, “We have crossed into Greece and Asia, places filled with all the allurements of vice, and we are handling the treasures of kings… I fear that these things will capture us rather than we them.” Every few years, the Senate would attempt to rein in ostentatious displays of wealth, but the resulting limitations inevitably went unheeded and unenforced: “by a fatal coincidence, the Roman people, at the same moment, both acquired a taste for vice and obtained a license for gratifying it.”9

  But this story of fabulous riches leading to moral decay only affected the small group of noble families who controlled the spoils of war. For the majority of Roman citizens, the conquest of the Mediterranean meant privation, not prosperity. In the early days of the Republic, service in the legions did not interfere with a citizen’s ability to maintain his property—wars were always fought close to home and in rhythm with the agricultural seasons. But when the Punic Wars spread the legions across the Mediterranean, citizens were conscripted to fight in campaigns that dragged on for years a thousand miles from home. Thanks to these endless wars, lower-class families were “burdened with military service and poverty,” and their property would fall into a state of terminal neglect. Upon returning home, a discharged soldier was likely to find the time, effort, and resources required to restore his land to its former productivity beyond his means.10

  Wealthy noble families exacerbated the sharpening divide between rich and poor. As they looked to invest their newly acquired riches, they found thousands of dilapidated plots just waiting to be scooped up. Sometimes destitute families sold willingly, happy to get something for property they could no longer afford to work for themselves. But holdouts were often bullied into quitting their land. As these newly acquired small plots combined into larger estates, the Roman agricultural landscape began to transform from small independent farms to large commercial operations dominated by a few families.11

  The plight of the dispossessed citizens might not have been so dire had they been allowed to transition into the labor force of the commercial estates. But the continuous run of successful foreign wars brought slaves flooding into Italy by the hundreds of thousands. The same wealthy nobles who bought up all the land also bought slaves to work their growing estates. The demand for free labor plummeted just as poor Roman families were being pushed off their land. As the historian Diodorus observed: “Thus a few men became extremely rich while the rest of the population of Italy grew weak under the oppressive weight of poverty, taxes and military service.”12

  Tiberius first confronted the new economic realities early in life. According to a pamphlet written later by his brother, “Tiberius was passing through Tuscany, and observed the dearth of inhabitants in the country, and that those who tilled its soil or tended its flocks there were barbarian slaves.” According to Gaius this was the moment Tiberius first seriously confronted the need for economic and social reform. This apocryphal story is no doubt a fine piece of exaggerated propaganda, but it captures the essential dislocation of the poor families from their traditional way of life.13

  Some of these dislocated citizens migrated to the cities in search of wage labor, only to find that slaves monopolized the work in the cities, too. So most remained in their rural homelands, forming a new class of landless peasants who would continue to work their land as
mere tenants and sharecroppers rather than owners. Their new landlords loved the arrangement—tenant farmers could be used to produce low-margin cereals, which would allow landlords to save their slaves for more lucrative crops like olives and grapes. Politically minded landlords had an added incentive to promote tenancy: these peasants remained political clients whose votes could be counted on in the Assembly. This new breed of poor tenant-farmers would be tied to their landlords forever unless someone came along and offered them a way out.14

  EXACERBATING THIS ECONOMIC and social dislocation was the Spanish quagmire the Romans had gotten themselves stuck in. When Carthage and Corinth fell in 146, Roman power seemed invincible, but Roman commanders in Spain had indulged in greedy atrocities that continued to provoke stiff resistance from the Spanish natives. So each year the Senate was obliged to raise new recruits and ship them off to the Iberian Peninsula, to serve on campaigns of undefined length against an enemy who specialized in demoralizing skirmishes. As a reward for their service these conscripts would come home to find their farms ruined.15

  While the unpopularity of the Spanish wars grew, potential conscripts began to defy the consuls. With no other recourse, they once again turned to the tribunes for protection. The tribunes were the ancient guardians of the plebs, but over the past century they had been co-opted by the Senate. With citizens once again suffering under the arbitrary whims of the nobility, the tribunes returned to their sacred mandate of protecting the people from abuse. In both 151 and 138, aggressive conscription by the consuls climaxed with tribunes placing the consuls under arrest until they backed off. The tribunes had every right to throw the consuls in jail, but it was still a shocking challenge to noble authority.16