The Comic History of Rome

by Gilbert Abbott À Beckett

The elder Gracchus had been tutored by his mother Cornelia—one of the earliest members of the ancient and honourable order of blue-stockings. She had superintended the education of her children, and had personally tutored them in eloquence; an art of which the female tongue is peculiarly capable. Her own house was the resort of some of the first philosophers of the day, who, like many modern philosophers, were thoroughly impressed with the idea that the way to penetrate the youthful mind, is to continue for ever boring it. In this manner the understandings of the young Gracchi had been thoroughly drilled, and the treasures of science had been admitted at so many apertures, that the only fear was lest the treasures, through some of the numerous openings by which they had got into the mind, might find their way out again.

The Mother of the Gracchi.

Tib. had already won some reputation in Spain, and was returning home, when he saw the Etrurian estates of the wealthy being cultivated by foreign slaves in chains, whose bonds not only bore the seal of degradation for themselves, but were the means of fettering native industry. These slaves were housed and huddled together in places called Ergastula, which were literally workhouses, but practically, prisons. They are said to have been built under-ground in the shape of vaults; but, in giving this account of their construction, there has perhaps been some misconstruction on the part of Columella, who is the chief authority for the statement.

We must now return to Tib. Gracchus, who had, by this time, returned to Rome, and had formed the noble resolution of remedying abuses, though he knew that loud abuse of himself would be the inevitable consequence. He had seen that the aristocracy had got possession of nearly all the land, allowing the plebeians to have no share in it, except the ploughshare, and even this was often denied them by the employment of slaves instead of the free agricultural labourer. Tib. was learned in the law, and recollected the existence in the books of the old statute of Licinius, which had fallen into disuse, and the renewal of which he thought might put new life into the plebeian body. By this law, no one was allowed to occupy more than 500 jugera—about 330 English acres—of the land of the state; but the state of the land exhibited a very different distribution of the public property.

The poorer occupants of the soil had been compelled by their necessities to sell to the richer, and Tiberius made the popular but scarcely honest proposal, that those who had bought should give back to those who had sold—a suggestion which was hailed by the masses as the happy inspiration of a patriot. The idea was simple enough, and if simplicity is an element of grandeur, the notion was so far a great one; though, as it is based on the principle, that when a man has sold everything he possesses, the purchaser or the possessor should hand the property back to the original vendor, the project is not well adapted to business purposes. The suggestion was, however, one which enabled a patriot to go to the country with a "cry," and though the end proposed was laudable enough, the means, which involved an interference with the means of the wealthy, could not command the general approval. It is true that much of the property had been unfairly obtained, and that much more was held in illegal quantities; but some had been the subject of regular sale, and the general confiscation proposed was but a Procrustean measure of justice.

The plan was of course opposed, and the term of "selfish aristocrat" was liberally, or illiberally—for they are unfortunately too much alike, sometimes, in their political sense—bestowed on every one who did his utmost to protect what the law had allowed him to regard for years as his own property. Common sense, however, began so far to prevail over clamour, that the proposal of Tib. Gracchus was modified to some extent, and the distribution of the surplus land was confided to a permanent commission of three men, who were called the Triumviri. In order to give something like consistency to the measure, it provided, that the land which had been taken away from its old possessors should not be sold by the new; and thus a sort of uniformity was observed by robbing the former, and restricting the latter; so that the principle of not being able to do what one likes with one's own, was affirmed in each instance. The injustice of the whole proceeding was so palpable, notwithstanding the "popularity" of the scheme, that a compensation clause was introduced to indemnify those who had built houses at their own expense upon the ground; but nothing was awarded to those who had only built upon it their hopes of being allowed to continue in quiet possession of the property.

Party feeling ran, of course, exceedingly high, or, in other words, its proceedings were extremely low on both sides. Tib. Gracchus was lauded by the people as the essence of everything noble, and denounced by the patricians as the incarnation of everything contemptible. On one side he was hailed as a patriot, and on the other side he was hooted as a fraudulent demagogue; so that if everything that went in at one ear went out at the other, his head must have been a thoroughfare for every kind of vehicle of abuse and flattery. The Senate took the meanest means of revenge, and reduced his official salary to one denarius and a half, or about a shilling a day in English money. Tiberius, thus curtailed of the means on which he lived, declared there was a conspiracy against his life, and rather prematurely went into mourning for himself, to excite the public sympathy. Putting his children into black, he took them with him from house to house, requesting that they might be taken in as orphans; but the public refused to be taken in by a trick so obvious. False accusations were, however, brought against him; and a next-door neighbour stood up in the Senate, declaring that he had that morning observed a diadem and a scarlet robe delivered at the back door, which proved that Tiberius intended to usurp the regal authority. In order to obtain the weight of an official position for his reforms, Tiberius got himself elected tribune of the people, and the apparently inevitable effects of taking office were at once shown in his introduction of a modified edition of the measure he had previously clamoured for.

The aristocratic party set every engine and every old pump at work to throw cold water on his project, and they at length persuaded one of his colleagues, named Octavius, who was played upon as easily as an octave flute, to take part against him. The mode of opposition resorted to by Gracchus was rather more effective than constitutional, for he called upon the people to dismiss his colleague—an arrangement almost as equitable as it would be for one judge to insist upon the dismissal of another, who might refuse to announce himself submissively as "of the same opinion" with his learned brother. When, however, the people are once fairly off, in a certain or uncertain course, they seldom think how unfairly their precipitancy may operate. They had set their hearts on a particular measure, and they refused to be guided by their heads; but without deliberation, drove away every obstacle that impeded the accomplishment of their wishes. As Octavius still held his position, Gracchus gave notice that he had a resolution to propose, and, on the following day, he moved the removal of his colleague. Octavius, however, met the proposed resolution by a remarkable display of resolution on his own part, and he declared that he should stick to his office, notwithstanding the other's unfriendly offices. These means having failed, Tiberius made a personal appeal to his colleague, and pointed out to him the gracefulness of a voluntary resignation; but Octavius, who rated himself very highly, objected altogether to the voluntary principle. Tiberius next attempted to starve his colleague out by sealing up the treasury; but the sealing made no impression on Octavius, who retained his official seat until it was drawn from under him by the mob, and he fell to the ground, between the two stools of himself and his unscrupulous colleague. A client or creature of the Gracchi was elected in the place of the deposed Tribune, who had been got rid of by upsetting one of the most important forms of the constitution—that form being no other than the bench occupied by one of the highest officers of the government. Octavius was hurried out among the mob, who thrust him about in every direction; but, when it came to the push, Tiberius Gracchus endeavoured to pull him through his difficulties. The effort was almost vain; and Octavius owed his life to a faithful slave, who lost an eye in seeing his master through the dangers that surrounded him. After this manifestation of the popular opinion, no Tribune ventured to have an opinion of his own—or, if he had, he kept it to himself, with a prudent regard to his personal safety.

The new bill for distributing the soil became at once the law of the land, and the two Gracchi—Tib. and Caius—with Appius Claudius, the father-in-law of the former, became a permanent triumvirate. This desire of the temporary holders of power to change their tenancy at will to a life estate, has been in all ages conspicuous. The stability of authority is so desirable, that a fixed executive seems to be everywhere a natural want; but the mushroom might as well seek to substitute itself for the oak, whose roots have struck deep into the soil, as the mere chief of a revolution might hope, without any hold on the affections of a nation, to become the founder of a dynasty.