Ancient States and Empires / For Colleges and Schools

by John Lord

The distribution of land ceased, but the revolution did not stop. The soul of Tiberius Gracchus “was marching on.” A new hero appeared in his brother, Gaius Gracchus, nine years younger—a man who had no relish for vulgar pleasures,—brave, cultivated, talented, energetic, vehement. A master of eloquence, he drew the people; consumed with a passion for revenge, he led them on to revolutionary measures. He was elected tribune in the year 123, and at once declared war on the aristocratic party, to which by birth he belonged.

He inaugurated revolutionary measures, by proposing to the people a law which should allow the tribune to solicit a re-election. He then, to gain the people and secure material power, enacted that every burgess should be allowed, monthly, a definite quantity of corn from the public stores at about half the average price. And he caused a law to be passed that the existing order of voting in the Comitia Centuriata, according to which the five property classes voted first, should be done away with, and that all the centuries should vote in the order to be determined by lot. He also caused a law to be passed that no citizen should enlist in the army till seventeen, nor be compelled to serve in the army more than twenty years. These measures all had the effect to elevate the democracy.

He makes war on the aristocracy. The Equestrian order.

He also sought to depress the aristocracy, by dividing its ranks. The old aristocracy embraced chiefly the governing class, and were the chief possessors of landed property. But a new aristocracy of the rich had grown up, composed of speculators, who managed the mercantile transactions of the Roman world. The old senatorial aristocracy were debarred by the Claudian ordinance [pg 495] from mercantile pursuits, and were merely sleeping partners in the great companies, managed by the speculators. But the new aristocracy, under the name of the equestrian order, began at this time to have political influence. Originally, the equestrians were a burgess cavalry; but gradually all who possessed estates of four hundred thousand sesterces were liable to cavalry service, and became enrolled in the order, which thus comprehended the whole senatorial and non-senatorial noble society of Rome. In process of time, the senators were exempted from cavalry service, and were thus marked off from the list of those liable to do cavalry service. The equestrian order then, at last, comprehended the aristocracy of rich men, in contradistinction from the Senate. And a natural antipathy accordingly grew up between the old senatorial aristocracy and the men to whom money had given rank. The ruling lords stood aloof from the speculators; and were better friends of the people than the new moneyed aristocrats, since they, brought directly in contact with the people, oppressed them, and their greediness and injustice were not usually countenanced by the Senate. The two classes of nobles had united to put down Tiberius Gracchus; but a deep gulf still yawned between them, for no class of aristocrats was ever more exclusive than the governing class at Rome, confined chiefly to the Senate. The Roman Senate was like the House of Peers in England, when the peers had a preponderating political power, and whose property lay in landed estates.

The speculators.

Gracchus raised the power of the equestrians by a law which provided that the farming of the taxes raised in the provinces should be sold at auction at Rome. A gold mine was thus opened for the speculators. He also caused a law to be passed which required the judges of civil and criminal cases to be taken from the equestrians, a privilege before enjoyed by the Senate. And thus a senator, impeached for his conduct as provincial governor, was now tried, not as before, by his peer, but by merchants and bankers.

The power of the Senate curtailed.

Gracchus, by the aid of the proletarians and the mercantile class, then proceeded to the overthrow of the ruling aristocracy, especially in the functions of legislation, which had belonged to the Senate. By means of comitial laws and tribunician dictation, he restricted the business of the Senate. He meddled with the public chest by distributing corn at half its value; he meddled with the domains by sending colonies by decrees of the people; he meddled with provincial administration by overturning the regulations which had been made by the Senate. He also sought to re-enforce the Senate by three hundred new members from the equestrians elected by the comitia, a creation of peers which would have reduced the Senate to dependence on the chief of the State. But this he did not succeed in effecting.

Radical reforms.

It is singular that he could have carried these measures during his term of office, two years, for he was re-elected, with so little opposition—a proof of the power of the moneyed classes, such, perhaps, as are now represented by the Commons of England. The great change he sought to effect was the re-election of magistrates—an unlimited tribuneship, which was truly Napoleonic. And he knew what he was doing. He was not a fanatic, but a Statesman of great ability, seeking to break the oligarchy, and transfer its powers to the tribunes of the people. He desired a firm administration, but resting on continuous individual usurpations. He was a political incendiary, like Mirabeau. He was the true founder of that terrible civic proletariate, which, flattered by the classes above it, led to the usurpations of Sulla and Cæsar. He is the author of the great change, which in one hundred years was effected, of transferring power from the Senate to an emperor. He furnished the tactics for all succeeding demagogues.