CAIUS SEMPRONIUS GRACCHUS.
It is beyond a doubt, that C. Gracchus surpassed his brother in talent: he was altogether a different man. The parallel drawn by Plutarch between Agis and Cleomenes and the two brothers, is a very happy one. Of the speeches of Tiberius, nothing has been left to us; from those of Caius, many passages are quoted. He wasthe first refined, polished, and elegant writer of the Roman nation: Scipio and Lælius are still strikingly rough and harsh, as Tib. Gracchus also certainly must have been, more so perhaps, even than Cato; (we see this from a fragment, hitherto unknown,[77]of a speech of Lælius, in an unpublished commentary of Cicero which Maï has discovered.) In what still remains of him, we find Cicero’s saying borne out, that he had been the first to come forth in an old literature with a new language; even as among the French, Corneille forms the link between the antique and the classic. In all likelihood, the language of C. Gracchus was far older than that of Cicero, or even Sisenna; but it nevertheless had the stamp of the modern age, and none of the stiffness and mustiness of the earlier times. He was perhaps also more of a statesman than his brother; at least he showed himself more to have been such, the reason of which may have been, that while the career of Tiberius was ended in seven months, he was engaged in public life much longer: his activity began even before his tribuneship; and the two years that he was tribune, and yet a half a year besides, it was in full play. His high accomplishments, and the development of his character, he owed chiefly to his excellent mother: the kindly disposition of the Gracchi is seen also in their affectionate behaviour to their mother, the like of which was very seldom to be found elsewhere among the Romans. On the whole, we know very little indeed of the domestic relations of the Romans; yet we may reckon as examples Horace’s loving mention of his father, and that of Agricola by Tacitus.
Caius was driven on by fate into the path in which he met with his ruin. Heart-broken by the death of his brother, he seemed as if he wished to keep away from the higher offices of the state: he rose indeed tobe a triumvir,—there he could not help himself,—but even then he would only act where it was possible for him to do so without shaking the existing state of things. But there was an inward call, which would not let him follow his own inclinations, although he foresaw his doom. At a very early age he had the eyes of the people bent upon him; he had served for twelve years, had been quæstor in Sardinia, and thus already had awakened jealousy: for a young man who displayed the most perfect disinterestedness, was a reproach and an object of hatred to every one. When the soldiers were in want of warm clothing, and the miserly senate would not grant any money, he did not rest until he had scraped together in the province, and from other sources, the means of buying warm cloaks; he also got a cargo of corn from Micipsa, the king of Numidia. All these things gave rise to such rancour and ill-feeling, that it was intended to keep him in Sardinia, where, even at that time, the air was so unwholesome, that it was hoped that he would fall a victim to it. By law he was only obliged to be there for one year; but he had been three years in the island, and therefore he now went without leave to Rome, where he publicly justified himself, showing how he had been thwarted in everything. This made such an impression, that not only did the tribunes take him under their protection, but he was himself chosen to be tribune of the people for the following year, and that under more favourable auspices than his brother had been: for among the enlargements of the tribunician power, which the senate had yielded, owing to their evil conscience, since the death of Tib. Gracchus, there had also been aplebiscitumpassed, by which a tribune who wished to carry through his laws, might be elected twice. In the year 629, C. Gracchus entered upon his tribuneship. He was upright and pure, like Tiberius, but passionate; he was superior to his brother in energy, and he knew more clearly what he was about. With regard to the possession of land, in the outsethe had indeed only to enact Tiberius’ laws: but he aimed also far beyond these at other reforms: since, as a tribune, he had a power just as lawful as that of the senate itself, and therefore did not act the part of a revolutionist. But had he also a chance of success? That was the question. In his own mind, he was satisfied that his cause could make its way. It is a pity that we do not get a sight of the whole of his plan; the most important points are the very ones which have been the most corrupted: his legislation consisted of a number of detached laws which affected the most different branches of the state. What we know of it, is quite enough to show how little he was of a demagogue. There are seemingly the greatest contradictions in it; but they vanish when we look at them from the right point of view: for we thus see that he did not wish to lend himself to any party. Far from it, he made use of the factions to carry out wholesome reforms, holding out to one side such and such advantage, and to the other something else, while he himself stood quite apart. His first step, as tribune of the people, was, of course, to avenge the death of his brother and his friends. Nasica had gone off with a commission to Asia, and did not return.
His first law was that no one who had been deprived of his office by the people, should be invested with any other: this bill, which was evidently aimed against Octavius, he withdrew at the intercession of his mother. The second enacted that those men should be punished with death, who, without any previous trial, had laid hands upon Roman citizens, and slain them. This was chiefly directed against Lænas, who, when it passed, went into voluntary exile. Of the speech, in which Gracchus made these motions, we have a fine fragment still left, which Gellius pedantically criticises. These were the offerings with which he made atonement to the dead.
The carrying out of the agrarian law had been decreed,and it went on, though rather sluggishly. The measure which has been most found fault with, is his having first brought in the practice of distributing corn to the common people living at Rome: in the way in which he did it, themodiusof corn was to be given out at three-quarters of anas, one-fourth of what it would cost elsewhere. This surely was not by any means a bribe, but a charity to the poor who wanted it. Rome had those great revenues which were paid in grain, and the treasury was so rich that it was not necessary to convert the corn into money. At the time of the Social war, there were about seventy-four millions sterling in the treasury, and these certainly could not be better bestowed than for the good of the poor: besides which, even from of old, corn had been distributed in the temple of Ceres; so that this was not even an innovation. The idea of a certain dignity being inherent in every one who belongs to a free people, lies at the bottom of everything that is done in a republic. A commonwealth has the duty of providing for its members, even for the most humble: this is a principle which England in some measure follows in her poor’s rates, whereas there is nothing of the kind in a despotic country, to belong to which gives no privilege. Now it so happened that part of the true Roman citizens, who also had their share with the rest in the sovereignty, were as poor as those paupers among us, who are maintained by the alms of the public: their numbers must have been immense; some of them were not in the tribes at all; others, as, for instance, the descendants of freedmen, were in thetribus urbanæ. The Gracchi wished to make peasants of as many of them as possible; but this could not be done with all, nor perhaps had the greater part of thatplebeseven so much as a claim to it, as the division of the land was to be according to tribes. C. Gracchus did not want the corn to be given them entirely for nothing; but at such a rate that they might easily earn their livelihood by their work. From this time, I believe thedifference of theplebes urbanaand the thirty-five tribes to be dated, the free Roman citizens of lower rank being the main elements of thatplebes.
Another of Gracchus’ measures was for the relief of the soldier. Every soldier had formerly to find his arms, and part of his pay was kept back to defray the expense of repairing them. But the treasury was so very full, that the sacrifice was not felt, if those who had to serve, had at least their arms given them. This point C. Gracchus carried. He also established between the quay, the Aventine, and the Monte Testaccio, a corn-magazine (horrea populi Romani): this afterwards expanded into immense buildings, the traces of which were very distinctly seen even so late as in the sixteenth century. Moreover, he made highways, and gave a new impulse to paving: it was perhaps under his management that the great Roman roads were brought to that perfection which we still admire in them; for he had them paved with basalt, which until then had been done on a small piece of the Appian road only. By this means he gave employment to the poor man, who was thus enabled to get his living.
All these arrangements were administrative ones; he now went on to make others which affected the constitution itself. The senate was at that time without control with regard to one of the most important branches of civil government: Polybius already remarks, that the great power of the senate in so democratical a republic was owing to two causes. In the first place, it had quite an unbounded power over the finances; so that many were dependent on it for their incomes. All the revenues of the state from customs, mines, tithes, and other sources, were let to companies of wealthy Romans; and these again in their business employed the lower classes down to the very lowest, who, therefore, were all of them under the influence of the senate, which had the supreme direction: thus indeed, though every one engaged in this way did not get his maintenancefrom a government employment, as with us; the result was practically the same among the Romans, that the state itself provided for a great part of its subjects. Hence swarms of these citizens spread themselves asnegotiatoresover the provinces, and sucked their life’s blood. This was one of the circumstances which enabled the small body of the senate to stand its ground so steadily. The other means which it had, was, that all these people were obliged to have their patrons in the senate itself, and that the judges in nearly all the more important causes were senators; at least in all those which did not directly concern Quiritary property. It is one of the erroneous notions to be found everywhere, that in ancient Rome a sort of jury had existed, which was instituted only after the laws of Gracchus. During the earlier times, no trial was required in any case ofdelictum manifestum; the identity of the person being proved, the prætor immediately enforced the law, and that was all. In other cases, as in criminal causes and those civil suits which were not brought before thecentum viri, the decision of onearbiterwas needed, before the prætor could pass a sentence which might be acted upon. The complaint was laid before the prætor, who after thirty days named a judge. The latter gave judgment according to certain fixed rules, from which there was no further appeal; for the appeal which there had once been to the people had been done away with, whilst for anything that was notjudicium publicum, none perhaps had ever been allowed. Since the seventh century, several pleas for which formerly specialquæsitoreshad been appointed, from whom they came before the popular tribunals, were now judged according to the common course of law; especially theactiones repetundarum, the complaints of the unfortunate provincials against their governors: for these, however, several judges were granted. But this single judge, or, as the case might be, these several judges, were always senators; and this was indeed a strong tie, by which the senate strengthenedits authority. But these courts were detestable: the most scandalous judgments were given; and the senator who by lot had becomejudex, allowed himself to be bribed in the most barefaced manner, no one making any secret of it: nor indeed was any body ashamed of doing thus; those who were not to be bought formed but a small exception, and that perhaps merely from calculation. The right of bringing an action made the provinces yet worse off than if they had been utterly debarred from it; for the governor had to plunder so much the more, that he might be able to bribe his judges. This reminds me of the saying of the Neapolitan minister, the prince of Canosa, an eccentric but witty man: he said, that no where out of the kingdom of Naples could one get so many false witnesses for a carlino (about fourpence) each; and that, if one wanted a quantity of them, they were to be had cheaper still. Thus the senators in Rome merely asked, “How many thousands will you give me, that I may acquit you?†One crow does not pick out the eyes of the other. This was revolting, and it was clear that it would bring the state to ruin: a change was necessary, and that of Gracchus was certainly the best as things were, though, on the other hand, it might also have ill consequences. He cast his eyes upon that body of men which now in some measure filled the place of a middle class, although sometimes possessing immense riches: it was composed of those who had more than a hundred thousanddenarii(400,000 sesterces), there being no longer any other standard but that of wealth. From what is called the people, Gracchus expected nothing whatever; he knew that part of it was a rabble which either did not care for anything, or else was open to the worst bribery; the knights, on the other hand, had no interest to screen the misdeeds of those who were in power. As in the senate there were three hundred members, Gracchus transferred the jurisdiction to a like number of knights in their stead. That the three hundred knightswere alone to be the judges, and that, as the case might require, each of these was one by one to be chosen by lot from among them, is placed beyond a doubt by the researches of Manutius. At first, this did not altogether work badly, as these new judges had none of the family and other connexions of the leading senators at Rome; but, on the other hand, they were no fair judges for the provincials. The Roman companies which farmed the revenue, consisted chiefly of knights, and they had been guilty of most unrighteous dealings in the provinces. Hitherto these had been ground down by the magistrates who had been sent to rule over them; and now that a remedy had been found for the evil, if the latter chose to make a bargain with the knights, they could buy them over by letting them go beyond their contracts, and take, for instance, one-fifth, instead of the tenth which was their due. In return for this, the knights would guarantee them impunity, should they be prosecuted for extortion. This was a monstrous abuse, occasioned by accidental circumstances; but for Rome and Italy the change was an improvement: and so it was on the whole for all those places to which the farming companies did not extend.
This fell upon the senators like a thunderbolt. And when an independent body of judges had now been formed, Gracchus went still farther: he substituted their jurisdiction for those popular tribunals which were not worth anything, and which henceforth are only met with as an exception. This was setting bounds to democracy, where democracy was no longer in its right place.
In order to put better blood into the veins of the thirty-five tribes, he wished to extend the full right of citizenship to the Latins, among whom there were some forty colonial towns besides the old Latin cities: they had existed for three hundred years, and had for two centuries been entirely amalgamated by language and manners with the Romans; and in all likelihood he meant to form them into new tribes. The Italian allies,on the other hand, from Lucania to the March of Ancona, nay all the Italian districts as far as to the Alps, he wished to raise to that position which the Latins then held; that is to say, to give them a vote in the assembly of the people, and prepare them to become full citizens after thirty or forty years. It may even be that something was really done to carry this out. This law again was most wise and judicious, and those who were for a reasonable aristocracy must have rejoiced at it. In the Latin towns, there were many good families of local celebrity, which were now to be ranked among the Roman citizens. In Augustus’ times, the most distinguished families came from the allied towns: the Asinii were Marrucinians; thus also, the Munatii and others; according to Cicero, literature was more cultivated among them than at Rome. Thus, an aristocracy of wealth and refinement was to be brought in; a wiser and more praise-worthy scheme than that of C. Gracchus, there could not possibly have been.
Many of his laws are either not known to us at all, or only from occasional notices. Though he wished to make the plebeians good husbandmen, if he could, and therefore assigned land to them, he did not make them a present of it. The state, the interests of which Gracchus did not lose sight of, had hitherto always had the tithes from the occupants; and this burthen he allowed to continue, as we learn from a passage in Plutarch which can have no other meaning. To him it seemed evident, that Rome could only hold her own by returning to her first principles: he therefore gave the Italians hopes of the right of citizenship, and also moved for a reform of the manner of voting; so that the republic would no longer have comprised one city, but the whole of Italy.
The distribution of the provinces had until now given rise to the greatest intrigues in the senate. Sometimes the tribunes even interfered. When the new consuls and prætors had come in, and the reference was madede provinciis, every one would apply for himself, andtry to get what seemed to him most favourable to his purpose of enriching himself; and the senate decided from personal considerations. At that time already, the elections took place long before the end of the year. C. Gracchus now made the wise rule, that the senate should settle before the elections, to what provinces a consul or a prætor was to be sent, and then assign them afterwards to the persons who were to have them: this was wont to be done by lot, and thus anything like favouritism was put an end to. This rid the republic of a great many evils. He, no doubt, was also the one who brought in the rule of having thecomitiaheld so early, that the year might not come to an end without the curule chair being filled. This is one of the real and lasting improvements of Gracchus, and it was still in force seventy years after his death.
These laws of his, Gracchus made in 629 and 630, having been tribune for two years running. His tribunate was less stormy than that of his brother, as he had much greater power, and was less thwarted. He got himself, and his friend M. Fulvius Flaccus, and very likely Q. Rubrius also, to be appointed triumvirs for the establishing of colonies; for his activity was unwearied, and it was felt in all the branches of the state to which his influence as tribune could reach. Among others, he had founded a colony by the side of old Carthage, and against this settlement a hypocritical outcry was raised, as if it might one day become dangerous to Rome; a most senseless notion, which some folks even held in good earnest. The jealousy and spite against him had now risen to the highest pitch, and the present opportunity was seized to harass him. The senate, with fiendish cunning, egged on another tribune, M. Livius Drusus, to outbid him in liberality to the people, and that in the name of the senate, so as to undermine his popularity. The great mass did not care, who it was that offered a boon to them; they thought, “Gracchus wants to buy and cheat us, Livius bids more: let ustake what we can get, and not let ourselves be cheated.†Such, the Italians are even to this day. I myself have seen a striking example of this in the citizen of a small town, who had some coins which I valued for him. He fancied that I wanted to overreach him; and immediately after, he asked me, for a piece which I wished to buy, three times as much as I had told him, whereas before that, I might have had all of them for the third part of what they were worth. When one gives the modern Romans any advice from real kindness, and with perfect disinterestness, they will at once suspect you of having some secret end in view; for indeed they will not trust anybody. Thus it was also in those times. Livius did away with the tithes with which the lands were still burthened; and instead of the two colonies which Gracchus had proposed, he founded twelve, each of which was to consist of three thousand citizens. This the rich could easily grant, the only losers by it being the old inhabitants, unhappy men who hitherto had dwelt by sufferance on the soil where their ancestors had been conquered; for the estates of the rich were only in those places where the old towns had been destroyed. With regard to these colonies of Livius, we may ask, have they really been founded? There seems to be no doubt of it, as those of Gracchus were certainly established; indeed they were in all likelihood thoseduodecim coloniæin Cicero’s orationpro Cæcina, about which there has been so much controversy. These cannot have had any reference to what happened in the war with Hannibal, when the number of those which had remained faithful was eighteen; so that eighteen and not twelve must have had thecommerciumgiven them as a boon. The MSS. have XII.: it has been proposed to write XIIX. instead; but this kind of notation is not met with in any of the old manuscripts. If, as I take it for granted, they were not twelve new colonies, but twelve Latin towns which, as they had a great deal of unoccupied ground, were increased by three thousandcitizens, it is quite easy to understand why they had better rights than the other colonies.
Gracchus saw that the thoughtless people turned away from him to the senate, and to the tools of the senate who deceived them. There are many men, frank and kindly souls, who heartily love the Beautiful, and are delighted at seeing distinguished men play their part, and look upon them as the ornaments of their age; others think of nothing but themselves: driven on by envy and jealousy, and grieved at hearing any name praised be it ever so slightly, even when it does not harm them in the least, they are glad if they can discover any weaknesses in great men. All this tribe now raised an outcry against Gracchus, laughing at him as adoctrinaire, a man of crotchets and theories. He had now for so long a time enjoyed great consideration, and he stood forth in too full a blaze of light not to become an eyesore to many people; just as the Athenian citizen gave his vote against Aristides, because he was called the Just. Thus it came to pass, that when he again offered himself as a candidate for the tribuneship, he was rejected; nor is there any reason to believe that his colleagues had been guilty of foul play. Among the independent educated middle classes only, Gracchus seems to have had many partisans; but these had not much political weight, and his friends of high rank were hot-headed people. In the year 631, his enemy L. Opimius, the destroyer of Fregellæ, whom, the year before, he had kept out of the consulship, was chosen consul. For when he was in the heyday of his popularity, he once asked the people to promise him a favour; this they granted, and while it was thought that he would demand great things, he begged the consulship for C. Fannius. The latter was ahomo novus, at least for the consulship, and it would have been hard for him to get it without the help of Gracchus: he, however, soon left him, and went over to his foes. Opimius also was a plebeian; but, like Popillius Lænas, he sided with thearistocracy against Gracchus. The oligarchical party was bent upon getting up a quarrel. Gracchus, now that he was no longersacrosanctus, did not feel sure of his life, and was therefore always surrounded by many of his friends. The measures of the senate became more and more hostile: the colonies granted to him were to be broken up by a decree of that body, and there was a deliberation on the subject; one of the tribunes moreover, who had been nominated by the oligarchs, spoke to the people then assembled before the Capitol, against Gracchus, and when the latter came forward to defend himself, he was charged in a tumultuous manner with having interrupted the tribune. The consul, who just then was offering a sacrifice on the Capitol, sent one of his lictors, as if to fetch something for the sacrifice, but in reality for another purpose; and the man while forcing his way across the friends of Gracchus, cried out, “Ye evil-minded fellows! make room for the good citizens!†One of them was rash enough to strike him; a tumult arose, and the lictor was murdered. His dead body was displayed in the forum, and a scene was got up, as if he had been a martyr to the good cause. For the first time,[78]the senate now passed the decree,viderent Consules, ne quid detrimenti res publica caperet. Opimius was invested with dictatorial power; for the custom of making dictators had fallen into disuse, as it could no longer be managed in the old forms, the curies having ceased to exist. Gracchus now took leave of his wife and children; after which, he and Fulvius went to the Aventine, the ancient refuge for persecuted innocence. He had had no foreboding of the misfortune which had come upon him: his whole party was all in confusion, and he could not make up his mind to let things go on to extremity. His friend and colleague,the consular M. Fulvius Flaccus, who was more resolute, armed some of the common people, and slaves; in short, any one whom he could get. The mob itself—from henceforth we meet with nothing better—for which Gracchus had no sympathies, left him to his fate, taking him for a knave or a fool, and being quite content, so long as they kept the benefits which he had gained for them. Thus it cost the consuls no trouble to attack the Aventine, though they had only a small force, the city being either paralyzed or indifferent. The knights, whom Gracchus had nearly remodelled as an order, were likewise idle lookers on, owing to that fear which is inherent in rich men whose wealth is not in landed property, but merely in money. This class shows itself lukewarm in every commotion, and lets itself be trampled on in every possible way, as we see, for instance, in the history of Florence.
Gracchus sent to the senate to effect a compromise; but unconditional surrender was demanded. The Aventine being feebly defended, theclivus Publicius, by which one ascended from the Circus, was taken by storm; and now Fulvius sent his son, a fine, handsome youth, to the senate, to ask for a truce. He was sent back the first time; and when he came again, Opimius had him arrested, thrown into a dungeon, and afterwards put to death. When the Aventine was taken, Fulvius, who had hidden himself, was found and slain; Gracchus leaped from the temple of Diana down the sharp steep of the Aventine, and sprained his ankle; not being able to find a horse, he, leaning on his friends, could hardly reach thePons sublicius. The two friends, Pomponius and Lætorius, who were knights, and formed an honourable exception to the majority of the higher classes, fought like Horatius Cocles on the bridge, to keep the pursuers at bay, and allowed themselves to be cut down. In the meanwhile, Gracchus fled across the Tiber into a sacred grove (lucus Furiarum), which, however, did not shelter him. Opimius had promised forhis head its weight in gold. According to the most likely account, a faithful slave did him the friendly service of killing him. An Anagnian, Septimuleius, got the head, and filled it with molten lead. Upwards of three thousand men were denounced as partisans of Gracchus, and nearly all of them were put to death by Opimius; a few only may have made their escape. This war of extermination was waged against all who were in any way distinguished: it was a downright butchery, like that of the year 1799 at Naples. For two years the bloodshed lasted, and these murderers called themselvesboni homines, boni cives. There were many renegades, and there is no doubt but that C. Carbo was very early one of them. He became consul, and then defended Opimius against the charges brought against him by the tribune Q. Decius. Carbo, after he had saved Opimius, became the darling of the oligarchs; but now there arose against him P. Licinius Crassus, a near kinsman of his, perhaps a brother of the wife of C. Gracchus, and the very one of whom Cicero so often speaks, especially in the masterly dialoguede Oratore, and in his “Brutus.†Crassus was a man of uncommon mind and powers; but like all the orators of that age (with the exception of C. Gracchus), wanting in cultivation. He too began on the side of the people, and then he went over to the senate, and became one of the foremost champions of the oligarchy; yet he is a very respectable oligarch, and quite free from the reproach which clings to so many others. He now spoke against Carbo, and attacked him in such a manner, that he took away his own life by means of poison (a solution of vitriol,atramentum sutorium).[79]This was a satisfaction to men’s feelings, and it gave a hope of the possibility that things would still change for the better. But for all that, they remained as they were: the knights were intimidated;the courts of justice were no better, nor were any fruits whatever of their independence yet to be seen. The utter worthlessness of those who were in power is strikingly shown in the war of Jugurtha, which Sallust, with his fine tact, has therefore made the subject of his historical work. But we must first speak of the conquests of the empire.