The Gracchus Brothers and Violence in Politics, 133–121 B.C.E.
Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus based their political careers on pressuring the rich to make concessions to strengthen the state. Their policies supporting the poor angered many of their fellow members of the social elite. Tiberius explained the tragic circumstances motivating them:
The wild beasts that roam over Italy have their dens. . . . But the men who fight and die for Italy enjoy nothing but the air and light. They wander about homeless with their wives and children. . . . They fight and die to protect the wealth and luxury of others. They are called masters of the world, but have not a lump of earth they call their own.
When Tiberius became tribune in 133 B.C.E., he took the radical step of blocking the Senate’s will by having the Plebeian Assembly vote to redistribute public land to landless Romans and to spend the Attalid king’s gift of his kingdom to equip new farms on the land. Tiberius next announced he would run for reelection as tribune for the following year, violating the prohibition against consecutive terms. His opponents therefore led a band of senators and their clients to kill him and many of his clients, shouting, “Save the Republic.”
Gaius, elected tribune for 123 B.C.E. and, contrary to tradition, again for the next year, also pushed measures that outraged his fellow elite: more farming reforms, subsidized prices for grain, public works projects to employ the poor, and colonies abroad with farms for the landless. His most revolutionary measures proposed Roman citizenship for many Italians, and new courts to try senators accused of corruption as provincial governors. The new juries would be manned by equites (“equestrians” or “knights”). These were wealthy businessmen whose focus on commerce instead of government made their interests different from the senators’. Because they did not serve in the Senate, the equites could convict senators for crimes without having to face peer pressure.
When the senators blocked Gaius’s plans in 121 B.C.E., he threatened violent resistance. The senators then advised the consuls “to take all measures necessary to defend the republic,” meaning they should kill anyone identified as dangerous to public order. When his enemies came to murder him, Gaius committed suicide by having a slave cut his throat. The senators then killed hundreds of his supporters.
The conflict over reforms introduced factions (aggressive interest groups) into Roman politics. Members of the elite now identified themselves as either supporters of the people, the populares faction, or supporters of “the best,” the optimates faction. Some chose a faction from genuine allegiance to its policies; others supported whichever side better promoted their own political advancement. The elite’s splintering into bitterly hostile factions remained a source of murderous political violence until the end of the republic.