Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 20.djvu/781

THE GRACCEII.] ROME in the past. 1 For, while Rome had been extending her sway westward and eastward, while the treasury had been enriched, and while her nobles and merchants were amassing colossal fortunes abroad, the small freeholders throughout the greater part of Italy were sinking deeper into ruin under the pressure of accumulated difficulties. The Hannibalic war had laid waste their fields and thinned their numbers, and when peace returned to Italy it brought with it no revival of prosperity. The heavy burden of military service still pressed ruinously upon them, 2 and in addition they were called upon to compete with the foreign corn imported from beyond the sea, 3 and with the foreign slave-labour purchased by the capital of wealthier men. Farming became unprofitable, and the hard laborious life with its scanty returns was thrown into still darker relief .when compared with the stirring life of the camps with its opportunities of booty, or with the cheap provisions, frequent largesses, and gay spectacles to be had in the large towns. The small holders went off to follow the eagles or swell the proletariate of the cities, and their holdings were left to run waste or merged in the vineyards, oliveyards, and above all in the great cattle- farms, of the rich, and their own place was taken by slaves. The evil was not equally serious in all parts of Italy. It was least felt in the central highlands, in Campania, and in the newly settled fertile valley of the Po. It was worst in Etruria and in southern Italy ; but everywhere it was serious enough to demand the earnest attention of Roman statesmen. Of its existence the government had received plenty of warning in the de- clining numbers of able-bodied males returned at the census, 4 in the increasing difficulties of recruiting for the legions, 5 in servile outbreaks in Etruria and Apulia, 6 and between 200 and 160 a good deal was attempted by way of remedy. In addition to the foundation of twenty colonies," there were frequent allotments of land to veteran soldiers, especially in Apulia and Samnium. 8 In 180 40,000 Ligurians were removed from their homes and settled on vacant lands once the property of a Samnite tribe, 9 and in 160 the Pomptine marshes were drained for the purpose of cultivation. 10 But these efforts were only partially successful. The colonies planted in Cisalpine Gaul and in Picenum flourished, but of the others the majority slowly dwindled away, and two re- quired recolonizing only eight years after their foundation. 11 The veterans who received land were unfitted to make good farmers ; and large numbers, on the first opportunity, gladly returned as volunteers to a soldier's life. More- over, after 160 even these efforts ceased, and with the single exception of the colony of Auximum in Picenum (157) nothing was done to check the spread of the evil, until in 133 Tiberius Gracchus, on his election to the tribunate, set his hand to the work. The remedy proposed by Gracchus 12 amounted in effect 1 Mommsen, i. bk. iii. cap. 12, bk. iv. cap. 2 ; Ihne, iv. 173 sq., v. 1-25 ; Nitzsch, Die Gracchen ; Long, Decline and Fall of the Roman Republic ; Beesly, The Gracchi, Marius, and Sulla. 2 To Spain alone more than 150,000 men were sent between 196 and 169 (Ihne, iii. 319) ; compare the reluctance of the people to declare war against Macedon in 200 B.C., and also the case of Spurius Ligustinus in 171 (Livy, xlii. 34). 3 Mommsen, i. 837 sq. Ihne, v. 16, thinks that Mommsen has exaggerated the depressing effects of foreign competition, but hardly makes out his case. 4 Beloch, Ital. Bund, 80 sq. 5 Livy, xliii. 14 ; Epit,, xlviii., Iv. During the period the minimum qualification for service in the legion was reduced from 11,000 to 4000 asses. 6 Livy, xxxii. 26, xxxiii. 36, xxxix. 29, 41. 7 Sixteen Roman and four Latin colonies. See Marquardt, Staats- vcrw., i. a E-g ^ Livv> xxxi 4) 12> 39) xxxii i 9 Livy, xl. 38. 10 Livy, Epit., xlvi. 11 Sipontum and Buxentum in 186 ; Livy, xxxix. 23. 12 Plut., T. G., 9-14 ; Appian, B. C., i. 9-13 ; Livy, Epit., Iviii.; Cic., L. Ayr., ii. 31. Compare also Mommsen, R. G., ii. 68 sq. ; to the resumption by the state of as much of the Tiberius " common land " as was not held in occupation by author- Gracchus, ized persons and conformably to the provisions of the Licinian law. Unauthorized occupiers were to be evicted ; in other cases the occupation was reduced to a maximum size of 1000 acres; 13 the public pastures were reclaimed for agriculture. 14 And the land thus rescued for the com- munity from the monopoly of a few was to be distributed in allotments. 15 It was a scheme which could quote in its favour ancient precedent as well as urgent necessity. Of the causes which led to its ultimate failure something will be said later on ; for the present we must turn to the constitutional conflict which it provoked. The senate from the first identified itself with the interests of the wealthy occupiers, and Tiberius found himself forced into a struggle with the senate, which had been no part of his original plan. He fell back on the legislative sovereignty of the assembly ; he resuscitated the half-forgotten powers of interference vested in the tribunate in order to paralyse the action of- the senatorial magistrates, and finally lost his life in an attempt to make good one of the weak points in the tribune's position by securing his own re-elec- tion for a second year. But the conflict did not end with his death. It was renewed on a wider scale, and with a more deliberate aim by his brother Gains, who on his Gains election to the tribunate (123) at once came forward as Graeehm the avowed enemy of the senate. The latter suddenly 631. found its control of the administration threatened at a variety of points. On the invitation of the popular tribune the assembly proceeded to restrict the senate's freedom of action in assigning the provinces. 16 It regu- lated the taxation of the province of Asia 17 and altered the conditions of military service. 18 In home affairs it inflicted two serious blows on the senate's authority by declaring the summary punishment of Roman citizens by the con- suls on the strength of a senatus consultum to be a viola- tion of the law of appeal, 19 and by taking out of the senate's hands the control of the newly established court for the trial of cases of magisterial misgovernment in the provinces. 20 Tiberius had committed the mistake of rely- ing too exclusively on the support of one section only of the community ; his brother endeavoured to enlfet on the popular side every available ally. The Latins and Italians had opposed an agrarian scheme which took from them land which they had come to regard as rightfully theirs, and gave them no share in the benefit of the allot- ments. 21 Gaius not only removed this latter grievance, 2 - but ardently supported and himself brought forward the first proposals made in Rome for their enfranchisement. 23 Ihne, v. 25 ; Marquardt, Rom. Staatsverw. , i. 437 sq. ; Lange, Rom. Alterth., iii. 8 sq. ; Nitzsch, Gracchen, 294; Bureau de la Malle, Econ. politique des Remains, ii. 280. 13 Or possibly 750 ; it was in excess of the limit fixed by the Licinian law; App., B. C., i. 9. 14 Compare the inscription of Popillius Laenas, consul 132, C. I. L., i. 551 ; Wordsworth, Fragments of Early Latin, p. 221. 15 The allotments were to be inalienable, and were charged with payment of a quit-rent. App., B. C., i. 10 ; Pint., C. G., 9. Their size is not stated. It is doubtful if the thirty jugera held " agri colendi causa" (compare the lex agraria, 111 B.C.) refer to the Sempro- nian allotments. See C. I. L., i. 200, and Mommsen's notes. 16 Lex Sempronia de provinciis consularibus ; Cic. Pro Domo, 9; De Prov. Cons., 2, 7 ; Sallust, Jug., 27. 17 Lex de provincia Asia; Cic. Verr., 3, 6 ; Fronto Ad Ver., ii. p. 125. 18 Plut., C. G., 5 ; Diod., xxxiv. 25. 19 Plut., C. G., 4 ; Cic. Pro Domo, 31 ; Pro Rab. Perd., 4. 20 Quasstio de repetundis, est. 149 B.C. See Plut., C. G., 5 ; Livy, Epit., Ix. ; Tac., Ann., xii. 60; App., B. C., i. 21. For the kindred lex Acilia, see C. I. L., i. 198 ; Wordsworth, Fragm., 424. 21 They had succeeded in 129 in suspending the operations of the agrarian commission. App., B. C., i. 18 ; Livy, Epit., lix.; Cic. De Rep., iii. 41 ; cf. Lex Agraria, line 81 ; C. /. L., i. 200. 22 Lange, R. A., iii. 32 ; Lex Agr., lines 3, 15, 21. 23 The rogatio Fulvia, 125 B.C. ; Val. Max., ix. 5, 1; App., B. C., i. 21.