Gracchi
Encyclopedia
The Gracchi brothers, Tiberius
Tiberius Gracchus
Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus was a Roman Populares politician of the 2nd century BC and brother of Gaius Gracchus. As a plebeian tribune, his reforms of agrarian legislation caused political turmoil in the Republic. These reforms threatened the holdings of rich landowners in Italy...

 and Gaius
Gaius Gracchus
Gaius Sempronius Gracchus was a Roman Populari politician in the 2nd century BC and brother of the ill-fated reformer Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus...

, were Roman Plebian
Plebs
The plebs was the general body of free land-owning Roman citizens in Ancient Rome. They were distinct from the higher order of the patricians. A member of the plebs was known as a plebeian...

 nobiles
Nobiles
During the Roman Republic, nobilis was a descriptive term of social rank, usually indicating that a member of the family had achieved the consulship. Those who belonged to the hereditary patrician families were noble, but plebeians whose ancestors were consuls were also considered nobiles...

 who both served as tribune
Tribune
Tribune was a title shared by elected officials in the Roman Republic. Tribunes had the power to convene the Plebeian Council and to act as its president, which also gave them the right to propose legislation before it. They were sacrosanct, in the sense that any assault on their person was...

s in 2nd century BC. They attempted to pass land reform
Land reform
[Image:Jakarta farmers protest23.jpg|300px|thumb|right|Farmers protesting for Land Reform in Indonesia]Land reform involves the changing of laws, regulations or customs regarding land ownership. Land reform may consist of a government-initiated or government-backed property redistribution,...

 legislation that would redistribute the major patrician landholdings among the plebeians. For this legislation and their membership in the Populares
Populares
Populares were aristocratic leaders in the late Roman Republic who relied on the people's assemblies and tribunate to acquire political power. They are regarded in modern scholarship as in opposition to the optimates, who are identified with the conservative interests of a senatorial elite...

 party they have been considered the founding fathers of both socialism
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...

 and populism
Populism
Populism can be defined as an ideology, political philosophy, or type of discourse. Generally, a common theme compares "the people" against "the elite", and urges social and political system changes. It can also be defined as a rhetorical style employed by members of various political or social...

. After achieving some early success, both were assassinated for their efforts.

Early life

The brothers were born to a plebeian branch of the old and noble Sempronia family. Their father was the elderly Tiberius Gracchus Major
Tiberius Gracchus Major
Tiberius Gracchus major or Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus was a Roman politician of the 2nd century BC...

 or Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, who was tribune of the plebs, praetor, consul and censor. Their mother was the Patrician Cornelia Africana
Cornelia Africana
Cornelia Scipionis Africana was the second daughter of Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus, the hero of the Second Punic War, and Aemilia Paulla. She is remembered as the perfect example of a virtuous Roman woman....

, daughter of Scipio Africanus
Scipio Africanus
Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus , also known as Scipio Africanus and Scipio the Elder, was a general in the Second Punic War and statesman of the Roman Republic...

. Their parents had 12 children, but only Tiberius and Gaius survived childhood. Their father died while they were young. Cornelia provided them the best available Greek tutors, who taught them oratory and political science and progressive and democratic views that 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 young officer in the third Punic war
Third Punic War
The Third Punic War was the third and last of the Punic Wars fought between the former Phoenician colony of Carthage, and the Roman Republic...

, Rome's last campaign against Carthage
Carthage
Carthage , implying it was a 'new Tyre') is a major urban centre that has existed for nearly 3,000 years on the Gulf of Tunis, developing from a Phoenician colony of the 1st millennium BC...

. He was the first to scale Carthage's walls; before that he saved an army of 20,000 men by skilled diplomacy. As the boys grew up, they developed strong connections with the ruling elite.

Background

Central to the Gracchi reforms was an attempt to address economic distress. Peasants were being pushed off their farms by rich landowners. While their old lands were being worked by slaves, the peasants were often forced into idleness in Rome where they had to subsist on hand outs due to a scarcity of paid work.

A related issue was a shortage of troops due to recruitment difficulties and mutinies
Mutiny
Mutiny is a conspiracy among members of a group of similarly situated individuals to openly oppose, change or overthrow an authority to which they are subject...

 in the wars being fought in the east and in Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

. This was partly due to lack of public land to give in exchange for military service; most of the land had already been divided among large landholders and speculators.

The Gracchi aimed to address these problems by reclaiming lands from the patricians that could then be granted to soldiers; by restoring land to displaced peasants; by providing subsidized grain for the needy and by having the Republic pay for the clothing of its poorest soldiers.

Efforts of Tiberius Gracchus

Tiberius
Tiberius Gracchus
Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus was a Roman Populares politician of the 2nd century BC and brother of Gaius Gracchus. As a plebeian tribune, his reforms of agrarian legislation caused political turmoil in the Republic. These reforms threatened the holdings of rich landowners in Italy...

 was elected to the office of tribune in 133 BC. He immediately began pushing for a programme of land reform
Land reform
[Image:Jakarta farmers protest23.jpg|300px|thumb|right|Farmers protesting for Land Reform in Indonesia]Land reform involves the changing of laws, regulations or customs regarding land ownership. Land reform may consist of a government-initiated or government-backed property redistribution,...

, partly by invoking an old Licinian law
Lex Licinia Sextia
Lex Licinia Sextia was a Roman law introduced around 376 BCE and enacted in 367 BCE. It restored the consulship, allegedly reserved one of the two consular positions for a plebeian , and introduced new limits on the possession of conquered land.- Authors :It is named for the plebeian tribunes Gaius...

 that limited the amount of land that could be owned by a single individual. Using the powers of Lex Hortensia
Lex Hortensia
Lex Hortensia was a law passed in Ancient Rome in 287 BC which made all resolutions passed by plebeians binding on all citizens.-Introduction:...

, 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 the reforms. Tiberius then appealed to the people, and argued that a tribune who opposes the will of the people in favour of the rich is not a true tribune. The senators were left with only one constitutional response – to threaten prosecution after Tiberius's term as a tribune. This necessitated Tiberius to stand for a second term. The senators obstructed his re-election. They also gathered an ad hoc force, with several of them personally marching to the Forum, and had Tiberius and some 300 of his supporters clubbed to death. This was the first open bloodshed in Roman politics for nearly four centuries.

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

Efforts of Gaius Gracchus

Ten years later, in 123 BC, Gaius
Gaius Gracchus
Gaius Sempronius Gracchus was a Roman Populari politician in the 2nd century BC and brother of the ill-fated reformer Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus...

 took the same office as his brother, as a tribune for the plebeians. Gaius was more practically minded than Tiberius, and so was considered more dangerous by the patricians. He gained support from the agrarian poor by reviving the land reform programme and from the urban plebeians with various popular measures. He also 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
Asia
Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...

 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. Other reforms implemented by Gaius included fixing prices on grain
GRAIN
GRAIN is a small international non-profit organisation that works to support small farmers and social movements in their struggles for community-controlled and biodiversity-based food systems. Our support takes the form of independent research and analysis, networking at local, regional and...

 for the urban population and granting improvements in citizenship for Latins
Latins
"Latins" refers to different groups of people and the meaning of the word changes for where and when it is used.The original Latins were an Italian tribe inhabiting central and south-central Italy. Through conquest by their most populous city-state, Rome, the original Latins culturally "Romanized"...

 and others outside the city of Rome.

With this broad coalition of supporters, Gaius held his office for two years and had much of his prepared legislation passed. This included winning an unconstitutional re-election to the one year office of Tribune. 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. With Gaius's support from the people weakened, the consul Lucius Opimius
Lucius Opimius
Lucius Opimius was Roman consul in 121 BC, known for ordering the execution of 3,000 supporters of popular leader Gaius Gracchus without trial, using as pretext the state of emergency declared after Gracchus's recent and turbulent death....

 was able to crush the Gracchan movement by force – Gaius lost his life and about 3000 of his supporters died in the fighting or in emergency execution shortly afterwards.

Assessment and reasons for failure

According to the classicist J. C. Stobart
J. C. Stobart
John Clarke Stobart , commonly known as J.C. Stobart, wrote two famous and influential books, The Glory that was Greece and The Grandeur that was Rome...

, 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
Classical Athens
The city of Athens during the classical period of Ancient Greece was a notable polis of Attica, Greece, leading the Delian League in the Peloponnesian War against Sparta and the Peloponnesian League. Athenian democracy was established in 508 BC under Cleisthenes following the tyranny of Hippias...

 polis.

Another problem for Gaius's aims was that the Roman constitution
Roman Constitution
The Roman Constitution was an uncodified set of guidelines and principles passed down mainly through precedent. The Roman constitution was not formal or even official, largely unwritten and constantly evolving. Concepts that originated in the Roman constitution live on in constitutions to this day...

, specifically the Tribal Assembly
Tribal Assembly
The Tribal Assembly of the Roman Republic was the democratic assembly of Roman citizens. During the years of the Roman Republic, citizens were organized on the basis of thirty-five Tribes: Four Tribes encompassed citizens inside the city of Rome, while the other thirty-one Tribes encompassed...

, 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 Gracchis' idealism; they were deaf to the baser notes of human nature and failed to recognize how corrupt and selfish all sections of Roman society had become. According to Oswald Spengler
Oswald Spengler
Oswald Manuel Arnold Gottfried Spengler was a German historian and philosopher whose interests also included mathematics, science, and art. He is best known for his book The Decline of the West , published in 1918, which puts forth a cyclical theory of the rise and decline of civilizations...

, the characteristic mistake of the Gracchan age was to believe in the possibility of the reversibility of history – a form of idealism which according to Spengler was at that time shared by both sides of political spectrum – Cato
Cato the Elder
Marcus Porcius Cato was a Roman statesman, commonly referred to as Censorius , Sapiens , Priscus , or Major, Cato the Elder, or Cato the Censor, to distinguish him from his great-grandson, Cato the Younger.He came of an ancient Plebeian family who all were noted for some...

 had sought to turn back the clock to the time of Cincinnatus
Cincinnatus
Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus was an aristocrat and political figure of the Roman Republic, serving as consul in 460 BC and Roman dictator in 458 BC and 439 BC....

, and restore virtue by returning to austerity.

Classics writer Simone Weil
Simone Weil
Simone Weil , was a French philosopher, Christian mystic, and social activist.-Biography:Weil was born in Paris to Alsatian agnostic Jewish parents who fled the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine to Germany. She grew up in comfortable circumstances, and her father was a doctor. Her only sibling was...

 ranked the conduct of the Gracchi second out of all the known cases of good hearted conduct recorded by history for classical Rome, ahead of the Scipios and Virgil.

Aftermath

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

External links

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