Gracchi

The Gracchi brothers, Tiberius and Gaius, were a pair of young men known as tribunes in 2nd century BC who attempted to pass land reform legislation in Ancient Rome that would redistribute the major patrician landholdings among the plebeians. For this legislation and their membership in the Populares party they are deemed the founding fathers of both socialism and populism (other populists prefer Spartacus or the latter Populares such as Julius Caesar as their predecessors by members of both ideologies trying to find immemorial roots to their movements). Both were assassinated for their efforts. The brothers were born to a progressive patrician family – their mother being Cornelia Africana, the daughter of Scipio Africanus.

Early life

After the boys' father died young, responsibility for their education fell to their mother. Cornelia ensured the brothers had the best available Greek tutors, teaching them oratory and political science, from which they were taught the view that in a democracy all the power rightly belongs to the people. The brothers were also well trained in martial pursuits; in horsemanship and combat they outshone all their peers. The older brother Tiberius was the most distinguished of the young officers in the last campaign against Carthage, where he was the first to scale the walls and had previously saved an army of 20,000 men by skilled diplomacy. ^[1] As they grew up they further developed strong connections with the ruling elite.

The Gracchi reforms

Background

Central to the Gracchi reforms was an attempt to address economic distress. Recent trends were seeing peasants pushed off their farms by rich landowners. The peasants were often forced into idleness in Rome where had to subsist on hand outs due to lack of funds, with their old lands being worked by slaves. A related issue concerned the demand for troops overseas.

Problems in the army during the second century BC were rife. There were recruitment difficulties, with wars being fought in the east and in Spain, as well as mutinies. Traditionally one of the rewards for military service was to be granted an allotment of public land – in return the new farmers and their descendants would be subject to legionary service. The difficulty was that public lands had already been divided out to large landholders or speculators, causing protests. The Gracchans aimed to address these problems by restoring land to peasants, by providing subsidised corn for the very poor and by having the Republic pay for the clothing of its poorest soldiers. ^[2]

The efforts of Tiberius Gracchus

Tiberius was elected to the office of tribune in 133 BC. He immediately began pushing for a programme of land reform, partly by invoking an old Licinian law that limited the amount of land that could be owned by a single individual. Using the powers of Lex Hortensia, Tiberius established a commission to oversee the redistribution of land holdings from patricians to peasants. The commission consisted of himself, his father in law and his brother Gaius. Even liberal senators were agitated, fearing their own lands would be confiscated. Senators arranged for other tribunes to oppose Tiberius's reforms, and he responded with an appeal to the people, and an argument that a tribune who opposes the will of the people in favour of the rich is no true tribune at all. The senators were left with only one constitutional response – to threaten prosecution once Tiberius's term as a tribune came to an end. This necessitated Tiberius to stand for a second term ^[1] . The senators obstructed the re-election and after gathering together an ad hoc force, several personally marched to the forum where they had Tiberius and some 300 of his supporters clubbed to death. This was the first time blood had been openly shed in Roman Politics for nearly four centuries ^[3] .

Tiberius's land reform commission continued distributing lands, albeit at a much slower pace than Tiberius had envisaged, as Senators were able to eliminate many of its supporters by legal means.

The efforts of Gaius Gracchus

Gaius addressing the Plebeians

Ten years later in 123 BC Gaius took the same office as his brother, as a tribune for the plebeians. Gaius was more practically minded than Tiberius, and therefore considered more dangerous by the patricians. As well as gaining support from the agrarian poor by reviving the land reform programme and from the urban plebeians with various popular measures, Gaius sought support from the second estate, those equestrians who had not ascended to become senators. Many equestrians were publicans, in charge of tax-collecting in Asia and of contracting for construction projects. The equestrian class would get to control a court that tried senators for misconduct in provincial administration. In effect, the equestrians replaced senators already serving at the court. Thus, Gaius became an opponent of senatorial influence. Fixing prices on grain for the urban population and granting improvements in citizenship for Latins and others outside the city were other reforms made.

With this broad coalition of supporters, Gaius was able to secure an hold office for two years, with much of the prepared legislation passed. This included winning an unconstitutional re-election to the one year office of Tribune. ^[2] However Gaius's plans to extend rights to non Roman Italians were eventually vetoed by another Tribune. A substantial proportion of the plebeians, jealous of their privileged Roman citizenship, turned against Gaius. ^[1] With Gaius's support from the people weakened, the consul Lucius Opimius was able to crush the Gracchan movement by force – Gaius lost his life ^[4] and about 3000 of his supporters died in the fighting or in emergency execution shortly afterwards.

Reasons for failure

According to the classicist J. C. Stobart, Tiberius's Greek education had caused him to overestimate the reliability of the people as a powerbase, causing him to overplay his hand. In Rome, even when led by a bold Tribune the people lacked anywhere near the influence they enjoyed at the height of the Athenian polis. ^[1]

Another problem for Gaius's aims was that the Roman constitution, specifically the Tribal Assembly, was designed to prevent any one individual governing for a sustained period of time – and there were several other checks and balances to prevent power being concentrated on any one person. Another reason for the efforts' failures was the Gracchi's idealism; they were deaf to the baser notes of human nature and failed to appreciate how corrupt and selfish all sections of Roman society had become. According to Oswald Spengler, the characteristic mistake of the Gracchan age was to believe in the possibility of the reversibility of history ^[5] – a form of idealism which according to Spengler was at that time shared by both sides of political spectrum – Cato had sought to turn back the clock to the time of Cincinnatus, and restore virtue by making people uncomfortable. ^[1]

Aftermath

The new forces of urban factions, rural voters, and equestrian class members meant that the problem of effective governance awaited resolution.

References

External links

• translation of Book 1 of The Civil Wars a history by Appian
• TIBERIUS GRACCHUS (168-133 BCE) By Hugh Last (BTM format)
• THE GRACCHI, MARIUS, AND SULLA By A. H. BEESLY (BTM format)