The Two Great Republics: Rome and the United States

by James Lewis

For the time the leadership of the popular party had passed to C. Papirius Carbo, a man possessed both of the ability and the vices of the successful demagogue. He was one of those politicians who are always to be found in the forefront of every movement for liberty or reform, and who, by their hypocrisy and selfishness, do more to bring discredit upon the principles they champion than can possibly be done by the ablest of the opponents of such principles. No greater contrast can be imagined than is to be found in a comparison between Tiberius Gracchus and Carbo. In the case of the former we see a devotion to principle and to humanity which not even the fear of death could alter; in the case of Carbo, on the contrary, we can discover nothing but a striving for selfish ends and personal advancement. He appeared as a radical among radicals when this attitude seemed to offer the shortest road to fame and fortune; and with equal facility he became the most abject tool of the senatorial party when such a change of position seemed most likely to result to his personal benefit.

Being elected a tribune, Carbo set himself to win the favor of the people by new popular legislation. He introduced and secured the passage of a bill extending the use of the ballot into the legislative assemblies of the people. His next measure, one to formally authorize the reëlection of tribunes, was defeated. Gaius Gracchus made his first public speech in support of this measure.

The work of the Agrarian Commission, in the meantime, had been progressing in spite of the murder of Tiberius Gracchus and the obstacles which the great landowners were constantly throwing in the way of the commission. The Roman census shows that in the six years from 131 to 125 B.C. the number of burgesses was increased by seventy-six thousand; this increase was almost entirely due to the operation of the agrarian law, and the work of the commission.

The vacancy in the Agrarian Commission made by the murder of Tiberius Gracchus had been first filled by the election of P. Licinius Crassus, father-in-law of Gaius Gracchus. Upon the death of Crassus, and of Appius Claudius a few years later, these commissioners were succeeded by Carbo and Fulvius Flaccus, the latter being the senator who had attempted to warn Tiberius Gracchus of his danger, on the day of his death.

Carbo, for the time the guiding spirit of the commission, attempted to win additional popularity by a vigorous policy in carrying out the agrarian law. Energetic action along this line was undoubtedly needed, as the great landowners had in many ways succeeded in blocking the work of the commission. The policy of Carbo, however, was that of the demagogue rather than that of the statesman, and the result of the methods which he adopted was a reaction which, for a time, completely put a stop to the work of the commission, split the popular party, and created a new political party or faction whose existence had an important influence upon the course of Roman political history during the next two generations.

The first step taken by Carbo was the publication of a proclamation calling for information against owners of public land who had not voluntarily registered themselves as such. In theory such a proceeding was undoubtedly a proper mode of procedure against the large holders of public lands who were endeavoring to evade the agrarian law; but in practice it resulted in a great deal of hardship. Many of the good land titles throughout all Italy were without sufficient documentary proof; and many landowners, whose land was private, were yet at a loss for evidence to prove that their land was of this character when information against them was filed with the commission.

The situation was a most delicate one, and one requiring the exercise of the highest degree of honesty, tact, good judgment, and diligence. None of these qualities was possessed by Carbo. The commission acted in the most arbitrary manner and apparently declared a great deal of private land to belong to the public. The injustice seems to have been practiced not so much against the great landowners (Carbo appears even as early as this to have been falling under the influence of the aristocratic party) as against the small Latin and Italian landowners. The result was that the Latins and Italians, who had been among the truest of the adherents of Tiberius Gracchus, now became alienated from the Roman popular party under the leadership of Carbo, and began to come under the influence of the senatorial party.

Politics made strange bedfellows two thousand years ago as well as now, and the new turn of the wheel of Roman politics brought in Scipio Africanus as the head of the Latins and Italians, and working in harmony with the Senate.

The first action taken by Scipio was to introduce and secure the passage of a law taking away from the Agrarian Commission the judicial power by which it was enabled to decide questions as to the public or private character of lands and vesting such power in the consuls. This judicial power was then vested in the consul C. Sempronius Tuditanus; but he being soon sent to Illyria to conduct a military campaign against the Iapydes, no person was left in Rome with the power to settle questions of this character. The work of the Agrarian Commission was now brought to a stop, and no further reassumption or allotting of public lands could take place. Thus the great landowners were finally successful in destroying the effect of the agrarian legislation of Tiberius Gracchus.

As this result began to make itself manifest, so great criticism arose against the action of Scipio that he felt called upon to announce that he would explain and defend his actions both before the Senate and before the people. In his speech before the Senate he carefully evaded all reference to the case of the great landowners who still continued illegally to hold large tracts of the public lands, and proclaimed his purpose to be to protect the Latin and Italian farmers whose small holdings of land were being wrongfully taken from them by the actions of the Agrarian Commission. These small farmers, sympathy for whom Scipio thus attempted to arouse, thus occupied the position held by those widows and orphans who to-day appear so prominently among the stockholders of all law-breaking corporations.