The Gracchi and Populism II: Gaius
30 September 2020
When looking at the transition of the Roman State from a republic to an empire, many historians begin in the years after the destruction of Carthage which finally and unquestionably ended the Punic Wars. Sallust is the earliest of our sources who lays the blame fully on Rome’s destruction of its primary and most powerful rival. (for the background on this, see Sallust and Superpowers) He felt that once ambitious Romans could no longer make their reputation in wars, they could not help but fight amongst themselves. This is exemplified by the story of the Gracchi brothers, who sought to change the relationship of the Roman People to their government with the idea of improving life for individuals and the Republic as a whole, and ended up in the middle of civil conflict.
The elder of the two Gracchi brothers, Tiberius,[1] used his short political career to advocate for reforms to alleviate some of the poverty experienced by the lower classes of Roman citizenry. He believed that providing a plot of land would allow many to become self-sufficient small farmers. This had the added benefit of assuring the Republic would have soldiers in future generations, as landed property was a requirement for even the infantry. [2] Tiberius was killed during an election, leaving his brother Gaius to take up the mantle of reform.
Gaius had been educated in the same manner as his brother with an emphasis on law, politics, and rhetoric expected for the political class. He excelled at oratory, a skill which the biographer Plutarch claims he outshone all of his contemporaries. Gaius followed much the same political career path as his older brother and, indeed, as any Roman politician did. He began with a period of service in the army, then a term as a quaestor.[3] In 123 BCE, he followed his brother’s example by submitting his name for the office of Tribune of the Plebs. He had made a reputation for himself with rural Romans during his time in the army and quaestorship, as well with his work on the commission which oversaw the distribution of land under his brother’s land law.[4] Because of this, so many rural Romans showed up in the city to vote for him that there was not sufficient room to house them, or space available to allow them all to vote.[5] Gaius was elected as the fourth of the ten tribunes for the year.
The laws Gaius presented in his first term as Tribune were designed both as true reforms of the Roman socio-political system and as means for him to gain and hold support amongst the poorer of the Plebeians. He presented to the Senate an expansion of the land reforms created by his brother, doing so in a politically careful way so as to not offend the august body as his brother had done; this bill passed. With that success, he presented another bill to the Senate, a law that would arrange for government price controls of grain to assure that the poor in the city would not suffer from price gouging at times of low supply.[6] This law was also approved by the Senate. These laws increased his already good reputation with the poor plebeians of the city.
He next sought to ingratiate himself with the Equites, a middling class between the Senatorial class and the poor, but much closer to the former than the latter.[7] He presented a bill that allowed members of their class to bid for tax collecting in the eastern provinces, a potential boon for those men as they served to profit immensely and a definite cause for concern for the people of these provinces, as that profit came from their overtaxation. This bill was approved by the Senate, earning Gaius approval from that group. His last major bill in his first year as tribune was to (partially) democratize the courts by allowing Equites to serve as jurors, instead of only members of the Senate.
He ran for a second consecutive term as tribune and won easily. In this year, Gaius also attempted to expand the citizen body of the Roman Republic as a whole. In recent wars, the peoples of Italy had sent soldiers to fight in Rome’s wars, some willingly, some less so, and had lost a great many men, with little benefit. Gaius’ bill would have given these groups, known as the Socii (Allies) a place in the citizenry of the Republic and a vote in Roman elections. As much as the people and even the Senate had been generally in favor of his earlier bills, they reacted with equal negativity toward this one. The upper classes did not like the idea of expanding the citizenship in general, for fear of seeing their own power reduced. The lower classes, many of whom had nothing they could call their own except the title of “Citizen of Rome,” did not want to lose that distinction. Gaius was forced to withdraw the bill; his detractors didn’t understand that he had not suggested expanding the citizenship lightly. The Socii had been ignored in their requests for a part in the state for which they’d bled and died, and when those requests were not granted, they became demands. Thirty years after Gaius Gracchus withdrew the bill, Rome was fighting a civil war over this very issue, eventually willingly conceding citizenship to the Socii.
With his popularity fading, Gaius took an opportunity to travel away from the city, ostensibly to oversee the ongoing work settling landless Romans according to his brother’s land law. During his two months away, his reputation was eroded even more. Senators and their clients began spreading the rumor that the reason Gaius had sought to include the rest of Italy in the citizenship was so that they would be in his debt. When he presented himself for a third consecutive term as Tribune, he lost. The people had been convinced he sought to become a demagogue.
With the new year, the Senate began to repeal some of Gaius’ laws.[8] Without an official magistracy, Gaius was unable to push back, and he didn’t have powerful enough friends remaining in the Senate to advocate for him. He did, however, collect a group of followers, a “bodyguard of friends” as historian H. H. Scullard puts it.[9] They were blamed for the murder of a servant belonging to one of the sitting Consuls, Opimius. He had long been an outspoken opponent of Gaius and took the opportunity to claim the murder presaged a revolution (this is highly unlikely). He persuaded the Senate that Gaius intended a revolution, and they created the senatus consultum ultimum, “the ultimate decree of the Senate,” which authorized them to take any action needed to protect the Republic. Opimius led a group of armed senators into the Aventine, where Gaius and his supporters were preparing to defend themselves. Gaius and a few others were killed outright, and nearly three thousand of his supporters were arrested and executed without trial. The Senate believed they ended the threat.
If the Gracchi had been purely working toward their own power, their deaths would have ended the problems perceived by the Senate. The reforms they sought, however, reflected genuine needs of the people. This is not to say that they did not seek to climb the ladder of power to the consulship; this was done in the context of Roman law and tradition. They also did not seek to cause overwhelming changes to the Roman State; their goals, if not their methods, fell squarely within the traditional concerns of the Roman government. Over the course of the next few decades, both men’s ideas would be validated: Gaius’ concern about the Socii were proven correct, as was his solution of granting them citizenship; it took a three-year war to convince the Senate of this. Tiberius was rightly concerned about maintaining the army; a generation after his tribuneship the Consul and general Gaius Marius reduced the requirements for the army, creating a situation in which the soldiers no longer held their service to the Republic over their loyalty to their general. So, while one might not call them revolutionaries, their actions unquestionably contributed to the revolution which shifted Rome from Republic to Empire.
For Further Reading:
Plutarch’s Lives of Tiberius Gracchus and Gaius Gracchus.
H.H. Scullard, From the Gracchi to Nero.
Ronald Syme, The Roman Revolution.
[1] My discussion of Tiberius is available here: (https://historywiththeszilagyis.org/2020july17).
[2] At that time, the Roman army was comprised of citizen men who had to equip themselves and so a minimum income from at least a small farm was a requirement to serve. There were, at this time, more unlanded Romans than there had ever been because so many families had lost their property while fathers, brothers, and husbands were fighting in the Punic Wars, the last of which had ended just a generation earlier in 146 BCE.
[3] The quaestors were quartermasters of the army, amongst other things.
[5] Roman elections were conducted according to the status of the voters. All Romans were members of one of thirty-five tribes, which were then split between Patrician and Plebeian and urban and rural. All votes were cast in one place in the city of Rome, meaning that those who did not live in the city had to travel to participate, creating an inherent bias toward the more moneyed citizens who could afford to travel. The voting began with members of the urban Patrician tribes, then moved to the rural Patricians, then to the urban Plebeians, then, finally, the rural Plebeians. The individuals voted, then those votes were tallied, and the winner given the tribe’s single vote. Once a majority of the tribes (18 of the 35) showed favor for one position or person, voting stopped, because there was no means by which more votes could make a difference. Because of how the voting was conducted, it was very rare for citizens of the rural Plebeian tribes to have the opportunity to vote at all. On this occasion, their votes were crucial to Gaius winning office.
[6] State granaries were organized from which every Roman citizen was entitled to a set amount of grain each month at the set price. This law was amended in 58 BCE to make the grain free. This allotment of grain came to be known as the Roman Grain Dole and it continued to provide basic food assistance for the next five hundred years in the city of Rome. This is the “bread” part of “bread and circuses.”
[7] Members of this group could belong to either the Patrician or Plebeian classes, the position was indicated by whether a man could afford to equip himself as cavalry.
[8] Notably, they did not even try to repeal the grain law, it had become far too popular with the people.
[9] H. H. Scullard, From the Gracchi to Nero, Fifth edition, London: Routledge Press, 1982.