The Historians' History of the World 05 [The Roman Republic]

(3) A great blow was given to senatorial power by a measure for improving the roads of Italy. Public works of all kinds had hitherto been left to the censors, subject to the approval of the senate. Gracchus now transferred the business to the tribunes.

This account of the chief Sempronian laws shows the spirit which animated Gracchus. It is plain that his main purpose was to diminish the increased and increasing power of the senate. It was no doubt a confusion between the purposes and the results of the Sempronian legislation that swelled the cry against Gracchus in after-times. It is clear, however, that he had no chance of amending the corrupt government of the senatorial oligarchy, unless he first weakened their power; and if he fancied that administrative functions might safely be controlled by a large and fluctuating popular assembly, something may be forgiven to political inexperience. Representative bodies are a modern invention, and the wisest of the ancients found no halting-place between aristocracy and democracy. Gracchus was not without misgivings as to the effects of his legislation. But it was too late to draw back, and his zeal was quickened by the return of Fulvius Flaccus from Gaul. By his measures Gracchus had so won all suffrages, that he and his friend Flaccus were absolute masters of the comitia. Gracchus told the people he had a favour to ask; he proposed as candidate for the consulship C. Fannius, an old comrade of his brother. Fannius was elected as a matter of course, to the rejection of L. Opimius, the senatorial candidate.

[123-121 B.C.]

The tribunician elections followed. Flaccus, though he had been consul, appeared as candidate for an office that had been raised by the Gracchi to sovereign power. But Gracchus was not by his side; for it had been made illegal that the same man should be re-elected tribune. However, there were not candidates enough for the ten places; and the people, exercising the absolute right of choice which in this contingency was allowed, re-elected Gracchus by a unanimous vote.[80] Not more than seven months of his first year’s tribunate were over, and he was secure of power for the next seventeen months at least. He now put forth all the tremendous power of the office. The senate sat powerless, and Caius Gracchus became for a time the virtual sovereign of the empire.

Immediately on re-election, Gracchus came forward with a bill for extending the Roman franchise, certainly to the citizens of all Latin colonies, probably to all free Italian communities. Here we recognise the hand of Flaccus, who had in his consulship raised this momentous question, and resumed the project on the first opportunity after his return.

A Tribune of the People

There can be no doubt that some change in this direction was necessary. The admission of the Latins and Italians to full citizenship would infuse a quantity of new blood into the decaying frame of the Roman people; and, by extending to all Italians the benefits of the agrarian law, there was really a good hope of reviving that hardy race of yeomen who were regretted by all Roman statesmen. Scipio had induced the senate for a moment to take up this cause; but after the revolt of Fregellæ, all thoughts of an extension of the franchise had been dropped. The difficulty was how to favour the Italians without provoking the Roman tribesmen. It is manifest that the project was still unpopular in the Forum, for Gracchus laboured to show that the Roman people and the Italians had one grievance in common—namely, the tyranny of the senatorial oligarchy. “The other day,” he told them, “the magistrates of Teanum had been stripped naked and scourged, because the consul’s lady complained that the public baths there had not been properly cleaned for her use. How great is the insolence of the young nobles, a single example would show. One of them was travelling through Apulia in a litter, and a countryman, meeting the bearers, asked whether they had got a dead man inside. For this word, the young lord ordered the poor man to be beaten to death with the cords of the litter.”

The chiefs of the senate perceived that the proposal to enfranchise the Italians had sapped his popularity at Rome. The consul Fannius, notwithstanding the part Gracchus had taken in his election, vehemently opposed the measure. He declared that he would again bring forward the alien act of Pennus, and expel all foreigners from Rome. The senate soon after ventured a step farther. One of the new tribunes, M. Livius Drusus by name, a young man of high birth, rich, eloquent, ambitious and determined, undertook to thwart the progress of his great colleague, and he put a veto on the law for enfranchising the Latins.

We must now return to the agrarian law. In furtherance of this law, Caius proposed to plant colonies in divers parts of Italy; Capua and Tarentum were fixed upon as the first of these new settlements: but here he showed no democratic tendencies; for no allotments were given to citizens, however poor, unless their character was respectable; and only a small number of colonists were to be sent to each place.