Editing Tiberius Gracchus (section)

== Tribunate ==

Tiberius was elected as [[plebeian tribune]] for 133&nbsp;BC. While [[Livy]]'s depiction of the domestically placid middle republic is an overstatement, the political culture in Rome at this time still was able to find solutions through negotiation, peer pressure, and deference to superiors.{{sfn|Mouritsen|2017|p=165}}{{sfn|Beard|2015|pp=226–27}}

There was substantial demand among the poor for land redistribution; Tiberius enjoyed unprecedented levels of popularity in bringing the matter before the assemblies.{{sfn|Mouritsen|2017|p=166}}<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Yakobson |first=Alexander |date=2010 |title=Traditional political culture and the peoples' role in the Roman Republic |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/25758311 |journal=Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte |volume=59 |issue=3 |issn=0018-2311 |page=296 |doi=10.25162/historia-2010-0017 |jstor=25758311 |s2cid=160215553 }}</ref> Tiberius' unwillingness to stand aside or compromise broke with political norms. A similar land reform proposal by [[Gaius Laelius Sapiens]] during his consulship in 140&nbsp;BC was withdrawn after bitter opposition and its defeat in the senate.{{sfn|von Ungern-Sternberg|2014|p=79}}{{sfn|Gruen|1968|p=58}} Tiberius' stubbornness, however, was motivated in part by his need to recover politically from the affair with the treaty.<ref>{{harvnb|Flower|2010|p=101|ps=. "Tiberius... could preserve his own ambitions and standing only by successfully proposing a political initiative". }}</ref><ref>{{harvnb|von Ungern-Sternberg|2014|p=79|ps=. "A further failure would have been a disaster [for Tiberius and] for his future political career". }}</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Brennan|2014|pp=42–43|ps=. "Ancient writers, most notably Cicero and Plutarch, are adamant that it was this [rejection of the Numantine treaty] that alienated Gracchus from Rome's senatorial establishment and impelled him to take up his reformist course..." }}</ref>

Moreover, victory on the matter of the {{lang|la|lex agraria}} would have, for Tiberius, won him considerable support among the people and buttressed his prospects for higher office. His refusals to compromise or withdraw his proposals led to suspicion among the elite that the bill was for his personal and familial political interests instead of his stated objectives.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Morgan |first1=M Gwyn |last2=Walsh |first2=John A |date=1978 |title=Ti. Gracchus (tr pl 133 BC), the Numantine affair, and the deposition of M. Octavius |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/268331 |journal=Classical Philology |volume=73 |issue=3 |page=208 |doi=10.1086/366432 |jstor=268331 |s2cid=161116161 |issn=0009-837X}}</ref> The complex motives of Tiberius and his ally and father-in-law Appius Claudius Pulcher were not limited to pro-natalist policymaking and its concomitant effects for army levies; they also may have calculated that land distributions would co-opt the loyalties of the soon-to-return Numantine war veterans. Passage would have served to balance against Aemilianus' political influence – he was the commander in the final campaign of the Numantine war – after his expected victory.{{sfn|Gruen|1968|p=51}}<ref>{{Cite book |last=Rich |first=John |url=https://brill.com/downloadpdf/book/edcoll/9789047420903/Bej.9789004160507.i-448_013.pdf |title=Crises and the Roman Empire: Proceedings of the Seventh Workshop of the International Network Impact of Empire, Nijmegen, June 20–24, 2006 |date=2007 |publisher=Brill |isbn=978-90-474-2090-3 |location=Leiden |page=164 |chapter=Crisis and the Economy |oclc=302423771}}</ref>

===Roman land in the second century===
[[File:Social war (Roman and insurgent territory).svg|thumb|Roman land – the ''[[ager Romanus]]'' – in red on the eve of the [[Social War (91–87 BC)|Social War]], some forty years after the events of Tiberius' tribunate. What this later map shows, however, is that Roman land was distributed in patchy areas across the peninsula and intermingled near the lands of Rome's Italian allies.]]

At the time of Tiberius' tribunate in the late 130s&nbsp;BC, there were a number of economic issues before the Roman people: wage labour was scarce due to a dearth of public building, grain prices were likely high due to the ongoing slave rebellion in Sicily, population growth meant there were more mouths to feed, and declining willingness to serve on long army campaigns had increased migration to the cities.{{sfn|Roselaar|2010|p=223}} Altogether, these trends reduced urban workers' incomes, driving them closer to subsistence. Most of the population remained outside the cities in the countryside but similar issues plagued the rural poor as well. The end of colonisation projects caused an oversupply of rural free labour, driving down wages.{{sfn|Roselaar|2010|p=223}}

The Roman state owned a large amount of public land (''[[ager publicus]]'') acquired from conquest. The state, however, did not exploit this land heavily. While it was theoretically Roman property, Rome had allowed allies to work and enjoy it after its de jure seizure.{{sfn|Roselaar|2010|p=222}} In the traditional story, derived from Appian and Plutarch (two historians writing during the imperial period), the {{Lang|la|ager publicus}} had been occupied by rich landowners operating large {{lang|la|[[latifundium|latifundia]]}} staffed largely by slaves, driving poor farmers into destitution between military service and competition with slave labour.{{sfn|de Ligt|2012|p=158}} This narrative is both incompatible with two republican censuses{{sfnm|de Ligt|2012|1p=160|de Ligt|2004|2pp=740–41}} and the ancient necessity for productive lands to be close to market.{{sfn|Roselaar|2010|p=180}} Illegal occupation of the {{Lang|la|ager publicus}} for commercial production was unlikely due to the {{lang|la|ager}}'s inaccessibility by urban markets; if displacement consistent with the ancient sources happened, it likely occurred only in farmlands areas close to Rome.{{sfn|Roselaar|2010|pp=188–89}} Slave-staffed estates, the driver for displacement in that narrative, also did not become common until the first century BC, after the {{lang|la|lex Sempronia agraria}}.{{sfn|de Ligt|2012|p=165}}

It is more likely that the expanded population of Italy through the second century&nbsp;BC had led to greater demands for land redistribution and pressure on food supplies.<ref>{{harvnb|de Ligt|2004|p=725|ps=. "[T]he widespread rural misery lying behind the Gracchan reforms should be seen as a consequence of continuing population growth".}}</ref> Due to [[partible inheritance]], modest farms had become divided into plots too small to feed a family.{{sfn|Roselaar|2010|p=215}} This led to [[underemployment]] of farmers; close to Rome, where demand for land was high, those farmers sold their lands to richer men and engaged in wage labour, which was a major source of employment around harvest time.{{sfn|Roselaar|2010|pp=215–16}} Some of those farmers also found wage work in the cities, such as jobs in public works, itinerant manual labour, and selling food; their material livelihoods declined, however, after 140&nbsp;BC when a pause in monumental building projects caused wage rates to fall.{{sfn|Roselaar|2010|p=216}} 

Alternate occupations included the army, but by the late 130s&nbsp;BC, army life was hard; the plunder of the early 2nd century's armies had ended and Rome was instead engaged in sanguinary and unprofitable wars in Hispania. There are many contemporaneous reports of endemic desertion, draft evasion, and poor morale.{{sfn|Roselaar|2010|p=217 n. 253}} A recent census also recorded a fall in Rome's population and, therefore, the number of leviable citizens; modern archaeology, however, has shown that this apparent decline was illusory.{{sfn|Potter|2014|p=68}} Nobody at the time connected unwillingness to serve in Spain with evasion of conscription by avoiding censorial registration.{{sfnm|Roselaar|2010|1pp=227–28|de Ligt|2012|2p=172|de Ligt|2004|3pp=742–43, 753}} The Romans eventually righted their census undercount in the census of 125/4&nbsp;BC, which showed the population had actually increased.{{sfnm|Roselaar|2010|1p=228|de Ligt|2004|2p=754}}

=== {{lang|la|Lex agraria}} ===
[[File:Comic History of Rome p 238 Tib Gracchus canvassing.jpg|thumb|Tiberius Gracchus [[canvassing]]. Image by [[John Leech (caricaturist)|John Leech]], from ''[[The Comic History of Rome]]'' by [[Gilbert Abbott à Beckett]]. The [[top hat]] worn by Tiberius is a deliberate [[anachronism]] intended to compare him to 19th-century British politicians.|368x368px]]

Tiberius believed that a previous law – commonly identified by modern scholars as the [[Licinio-Sextian rogations]] of the early fourth century&nbsp;BC<ref>{{harvnb|Roselaar|2010|pp=99, 231|ps=. None of the ancient accounts name the {{lang|la|lex Licinia}} directly; identification is based on descriptions of that law in Livy. }}</ref> – had limited the amount of public land that any person could hold to 500 [[jugerum|jugera]] (approximately 120 [[hectare]]s).<ref>{{cite book |last=Steel |first=Catherine |title=The end of the Roman republic, 149 to 44&nbsp;BC: conquest and crisis |year=2013 |publisher=Edinburgh University Press |series=Edinburgh History of Ancient Rome |isbn=978-0-7486-1944-3 |page=17 }}</ref>{{sfn|Beard|2015|p=223}} This legal maximum on land holdings, if it actually existed,<ref>{{harvnb|Roselaar|2010|p=100}} documents scholarly disagreement as to when a 500 {{lang|la|jugera}} maximum was in fact implemented. Suggested dates range from 300–133&nbsp;BC, with the last date implying that no such prior law existed.</ref> was largely ignored and many people possessed far more than the limit,{{sfn|Scullard|1982|p=18}}{{sfn|Roselaar|2010|p=239}} including [[Marcus Octavius]], also serving as tribune in that year, and [[Publius Cornelius Scipio Nasica Serapio]], then [[pontifex maximus]].{{sfn|Roselaar|2010|pp=239–40}}

The accounts of Appian and Plutarch are largely based on Tiberius and his supporters' political rhetoric and argumentation. Modern scholars have argued that those arguments were tendentious and did not reflect contemporaneous conditions objectively.{{sfn|Roselaar|2010|p=225}} Source difficulties also emerge, inasmuch as some modern scholars also doubt whether the Gracchan narratives in Plutarch and Appian are based more on tragic dramas about their deaths rather than credible historical narratives.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Beness |first1=J Lea |last2=Hillard |first2=TW |date=2001 |title=The theatricality of the deaths of C Gracchus and friends |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S000983880100012X/type/journal_article |journal=Classical Quarterly |volume=51 |issue=1 |pages=135–140 |doi=10.1093/cq/51.1.135 |issn=0009-8388}}</ref>

According to Plutarch, referencing a pamphlet attributed to Tiberius' brother Gaius, Tiberius developed his measures after being moved by the dearth of free Italians tilling the fields in Etruria on the march to the Numantine war.{{sfn|Plut. ''Ti. Gracch.''|loc=8.7}} The poor, without land, became unavailable for military service and stopped reproducing, causing population decline.<ref>{{harvnb|Roselaar|2010|p=226}}; {{harvnb|Plut. ''Ti. Gracch.''|loc=8.3}}.</ref> A quote from Tiberius Gracchus is preserved in Plutarch:

{{quote|The wild beasts that roam over Italy... have every one of them a cave or lair to lurk in; but the men who fight and die for Italy enjoy the common air and light, indeed, but nothing else; houseless and homeless they wander about with their wives and children. And it is with lying lips that their [commanders] exhort the soldiers in their battles to defend sepulchres and shrines from the enemy; for not a man of them has an hereditary altar, not one of all these many Romans an ancestral tomb, but they fight and die to support others in wealth and luxury, and though they are styled masters of the world, they have not a single clod of earth that is their own.<ref>Cited in {{harvnb|Roselaar|2010|p=226}}; translation from {{harvnb|Plut. ''Ti. Gracch.''|loc=9.4–5}}.</ref>}}

To resolve what he identified as the problem, Tiberius proposed a {{lang|la|[[lex agraria]]}} to enforce a limit on the amount of public land that one person could hold; surplus land would then be transferred into the hands of poor Roman citizens.{{sfn|Roselaar|2010|p=221}} Benefitting the poor was not the only goal of his legislation: Tiberius also intended to reduce the level of inflammation in the city by moving the poor into the countryside{{sfn|Gruen|1995|p=387}} while also endowing those people with the necessary land to meet army property qualifications and reverse apparent population decline.{{sfnm|Roselaar|2010|1p=229–30|de Ligt|2004|2pp=752–53|Beard|2015|3p=267}}

This agrarian policy, focusing on people with agricultural skills, led to much of his support coming from the poor rural [[plebs]] rather than the plebs in the city.{{sfn|Brunt|1988|p=250}} Thousands reportedly flooded in from the countryside to support Tiberius and his programme.{{sfn|Lintott|1994|p=66}} Tiberius was not, however, alone in his views: he was supported by one of the consuls for the year (the jurist [[Publius Mucius Scaevola (pontifex maximus)|Publius Mucius Scaevola]]), his father-in-law Appius Claudius Pulcher (who had served as consul for 143&nbsp;BC), [[Publius Licinius Crassus Dives Mucianus|Publius Licinius Crassus Mucianus]] (elected {{Lang|la|pontifex maximus}} the next year), and other younger, junior senators.{{sfn|Lintott|1994|p=65}}{{Sfn|Broughton|1951|p=499}}

The amount of land each beneficiary would have received is unknown. Thirty {{Lang|la|jugera}} is often suggested. That amount, however, is greatly in excess of the regular amount of land distributed {{lang|la|viritim}} in colonisation programmes (only 10 {{Lang|la|jugera}}).{{sfn|Roselaar|2010|p=232}} There were also restrictions on alienation and possibly rents (a {{Lang|la|vectigal}}).{{sfn|Roselaar|2010|p=233}} While these conditions place the private ownership of the distributed land into question, and therefore also question whether an owner could be registered in the census as owning that land. Later laws indicate that it was legally treated as private with tenure maintained given payment of the ''{{Lang|la|vectigal}}''. An unpaid {{Lang|la|vectigal}} would trigger reverter to the state, which would then be able to redistribute it again.{{sfn|Roselaar|2010|pp=235–36}}

The law would also create a commission, staffed following elections, by Tiberius Gracchus, his brother Gaius Gracchus, and his father-in-law, [[Appius Claudius Pulcher (consul 143 BC)|Appius Claudius Pulcher]], to survey land and determine which illegally occupied land was to be seized for redistribution.{{sfn|Brunt|1988|pp=466–67}}

=== Passage of the ''lex agraria'' ===

People possessing more than 500 {{Lang|la|jugera}} of land opposed the law strongly. While previous laws had fined occupation in excess of the limit, those fines were rarely enforced and the land possession itself was not disturbed. This led them to invest into improvements to that land, with some protests that the land was part of wives' dowries or the site of family tombs. Tiberius Gracchus' law would seize the land explicitly, a novelty.{{sfn|Roselaar|2010|p=237}} According to Plutarch, Tiberius initially proposed compensation, but the compromise offer was withdrawn after opposition; his later proposal was to compensate by securing tenure over a cap of 500 {{Lang|la|jugera}} (with an additional 250 {{Lang|la|jugera}} for up to two sons).<ref>{{harvnb|Roselaar|2010|p=238}}; {{harvnb|von Ungern-Sternberg|2014|p=79}}; {{harvnb|Plut. ''Ti. Gracch.''|loc=10.3}}.</ref>

The exact legislative history of the bill is disputed: Appian and Plutarch's accounts of the bill's passage differ considerably.{{sfn|Badian|1979|p=455}} At a broad level, the bill was proposed before the [[Plebeian Council|''concilium plebis'']]; Tiberius forwent the approval of the senate before a bill was to be introduced. In response, the senate secured one of his tribunician colleagues to veto the proceedings.{{sfn|von Ungern-Sternberg|2014|p=79}} Both versions agree on obstruction from Marcus Octavius, one of the other tribunes, and his deposition.{{sfn|Badian|1979|p=456}}<ref>Sources differ as to whether Octavius was one of Tiberius' friends; Plutarch delivers a dramatic scene of emotional entreaties while Dio attributes Octavius' opposition to a family feud. {{Cite journal |last1=Beness |first1=J Lea |last2=Hillard |first2=T W |date=2001 |title=The theatricality of the deaths of C Gracchus and friends |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S000983880100012X/type/journal_article |journal=Classical Quarterly |volume=51 |issue=1 <!--|pages=135–140--> |doi=10.1093/cq/51.1.135 |issn=0009-8388 |page=137, n. 14 }} {{harvnb|Plut. ''Ti. Gracch.''|loc=10–11}} and Dio, 24.83.4.</ref>

In Plutarch's account, Tiberius proposes a bill with various concessions, which is then vetoed by [[Marcus Octavius]], one of the other tribunes. In response, he withdraws the bill and removes the concessions. This latter bill is the one debated heavily in the forum. Tiberius tries various tactics to induce Octavius to abandon his opposition: offering him a bribe and shutting down the Roman treasury, and thereby, most government business. When the Assembly eventually assembles to vote, a veto is presumed. They attempt to adjudicate the matter in the senate, to no avail, and the Assembly votes to depose Octavius from office when he maintains his veto. Following the deposition, Tiberius' freedmen drag Octavius from the Assembly and the Assembly passes the bill.{{sfn|Badian|1979|p=455}}{{sfn|Lintott|1994|p=67}}

In Appian's account, however, there is only one bill: opposition from Octavius appears only at the final vote, leading to the dispute to be taken to the senate, and then Octavius' deposition followed by the bill's passage.{{sfn|Badian|1979|pp=455–56}} Prior to the vote, Tiberius gives a number of speeches, in which Appian asserts that Tiberius passed the bill on behalf of all Italians.{{sfn|Badian|1979|p=456}}

The political dispute between Tiberius and Octavius lacked clear resolution because of the unwritten Roman constitution's flexibility. The system, which worked best when magistrates worked cooperatively, broke down when magistrates exploited the legal extent of their powers fully and contrary to existing norms.{{sfn|von Ungern-Sternberg|2014|p=80}} Both men, being tribunes, represented the plebs and their interests. Octavius insisted on maintaining his veto against his constituents; Tiberius' response was to unconstitutionally depose Octavius.{{sfn|Flower|2010|pp=83–84}}<ref>{{harvnb|Mackay|2009|p=43|ps=. "Rome had no written constitution, merely the interpretation of the inherited system on the basis of precedent... There was no constitutional precedent for deposing a tribune, since such a thing had never happened, and it had never occurred to anyone that such a thing might happen". }}</ref> Tiberius had extra-constitutionally bypassed the senate by bringing the {{lang|la|lex agraria}} without its consent; Octavius similarly extra-constitutionally attempted to obstruct the manifest will of the people by veto.{{sfn|Brunt|1988|p=22}}

=== Opposition and death ===

After passage of the bill, the senate allocated very little money for the commissioners, making it impossible for the commission to do its job when it needed to pay for surveyors, pack animals, and other expenses.{{sfnm|Beard|2015|1p=223|Lintott|1994|2p=68}} After this meagre allotment, however, news arrived that [[Attalus III of Pergamum]] had died and that he had bequeathed his treasury and devised his kingdom to Rome.{{sfn|Lintott|1994|pp=34, 68}} Tiberius proposed using the bequest to finance the land commission, which triggered a wave of opposition.{{sfn|Roselaar|2010|p=239}} The ancient sources disagree on what the bequest would be used for: Plutarch asserts it was to be used to buy tools for the farmers, Livy's [[epitome]] asserts it was to be used to purchase more land for redistribution in response to an apparent shortage. The latter is unlikely, as the process of surveying and distribution were incipient; it is also possible the money was to be used to finance the commission itself.{{sfn|Roselaar|2010|p=239}}

After this proposal, Tiberius was attacked in the senate by Quintus Pompeius and accused of harbouring regal ambitions.{{sfnm|Lintott|1994|1p=68|Mackay|2009|2p=47|Roselaar|2010|3p=239}} One of the former consuls also brought a lawsuit against Tiberius arguing the deposition of Octavius violated magisterial collegiality and was a dangerous precedent which a sufficiently powerful tribune could exploit to bypass all checks on his power.{{sfn|Mackay|2009|p=47}}

Tiberius' proposal usurped senatorial prerogatives over finance and foreign policy, breaking a major political norm. Senators also feared that Tiberius intended to appropriate Attalus' bequest to hand out money to his personal benefit.{{sfn|Roselaar|2010|p=239}} This was compounded by his attempt to stand for re-election, claiming that he needed to do so to prevent repeal of the agrarian law{{sfn|Goldsworthy|2006|p=26}} or possibly to escape prosecution for his deposition of Octavius.{{sfnm|Mackay|2009|1p=47|Gruen|1968|2p=58}} Attempts at such consecutive terms may have been illegal.{{sfn|Gruen|1968|p=57|ps=. "It is possible that this attempt [for a second tribunate] was in violation of Roman law".}} The bid, however, certainly violated Roman constitutional norms: magistrates were immune while in office and continuous officeholding implied continual immunity.{{sfn|Mackay|2009|p=48}} Some ancient historians also report that Tiberius, to smooth his bid for re-election, brought laws to create mixed juries of senators and {{Lang|la|equites}} but this likely emerges from confusion with his brother's law to that effect.{{sfn|Gruen|1968|p=58}} The deadly opposition to Tiberius Gracchus' reforms focused more on his subsequent actions – interpreted by his contemporaries as indicative of a desire to essentially overthrow the republic and institute a popular [[tyranny]]<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Boren |first=Henry C |date=1961 |title=Tiberius Gracchus: the opposition view |jstor=292017 |journal=American Journal of Philology |volume=82 |issue=4 |pages=358–369 |doi=10.2307/292017 |issn=0002-9475 |quote=It appears extremely likely that Nasica and the rest were actually convinced [Tiberius] was aiming at demagogic tyranny }}</ref> – than on the reforms themselves.{{sfn|Roselaar|2010|p=240}}

At the electoral ''comitia'' counting the votes for the tribunes for 132&nbsp;BC, Tiberius and his entourage seized the Capitoline hill where the voting was taking place to dictate the result.{{sfn|Mackay|2009|p=49}} At a senate meeting on the tribunician elections, Tiberius' first cousin [[Publius Cornelius Scipio Nasica Serapio]], the [[pontifex maximus]], attempted to induce consul Publius Mucius Scaevola use force and stop Tiberius' re-election. When Scaevola refused, Scipio Nasica shouted a formula for levying soldiers in an emergency – "anyone who wants the community secure, follow me" ({{langx|la|qui rem publicam salvam esse volunt me sequatur}})<ref>Val. Max., 3.2.17.</ref> – and led a mob to the {{lang|la|comitia}} with his toga [[capite velato|drawn over his head]].{{sfnm|Mackay|2009|1p=49–50|Lintott|1994|2pp=69–72}} In doing so, he attempted to frame the killing as a religious rite ({{Lang|la|consacratio}}) taken to free the state from an incipient tyrant.{{sfnm|Beard|2015|1p=224|Flower|2010|2p=83}} Tiberius and supporters did not fight back;{{sfn|von Ungern-Sternberg|2014|p=80}} killed with stones, wooden chairs and other blunt weapons, their bodies were thrown into the [[Tiber]].{{sfn|Goldsworthy|2006|p=26}}