Plutarch's account of the younger Gracchus brother, who used the tribunate to pass sweeping grain, land, and judiciary reforms before dying in the street violence of 121 BCE.
Plutarch's Caius Gracchus opens with the younger brother withdrawing from public life after Tiberius Gracchus's murder, only to be drawn back in by his own oratorical gifts and by a political system that would not let him remain private. Caius serves a quaestorship in Sardinia, defends himself against enemies who begrudge his ambition, and then wins election as tribune of the plebs, where he proves a far more formidable political operator than his brother had been.
As tribune, Caius drives through a program that touches nearly every interest group in Rome at once: laws lowering the price of grain for the urban poor, laws distributing public land, a judiciary law transferring control of the courts from the Senate alone to a body shared with the equestrian knights, and proposals to found new colonies and extend citizenship to the Latins. The Senate, alarmed at his growing power, counters by setting up a rival tribune, Livius Drusus, to outbid Caius in popular favor, and gradually strips away his support. Caius loses re-election, the political climate turns violent, and when a riot breaks out around the repeal of his colonial law, the Senate passes what Plutarch describes as an unprecedented decree arming the consul Opimius against him. Caius is hunted down and killed along with his ally Fulvius Flaccus; his head is carried off for a bounty, and Plutarch closes with the grief of his mother Cornelia, who bore the deaths of both sons with a composure many at the time found strange.
The Life matters historically as Plutarch's portrait of the moment Roman politics crossed from contentious but bloodless factionalism into armed civil violence between citizens, a precedent that would recur repeatedly through the late Republic. It also preserves details found nowhere else in the surviving record, such as the specifics of the judiciary law's three-hundred-knight compromise and the domestic scene of Caius's wife pleading with him not to go to the forum on the day of his death, making it a primary source for both the institutional history of the Gracchan reforms and the human texture of their collapse.
“Caius Gracchus, at first, either fearing his enemies or gathering resentment against them, withdrew from the forum and spent his time quietly by himself, like a man who for the present was living in a humble way and meant to go on living so unambitiously for the future”
— Caius Gracchus
“for when he spoke in defense of a friend of his, Vettius, who was on trial, and the people joined in a shared ecstasy of delight and ran riot around him, he showed the other orators to be no different from children, and the powerful men once again fell into fear”
— Caius Gracchus
“Another was a grain law, lowering the price of grain in the market for the poor. Another was a judiciary law, by which he cut away the greater part of the senators' power”
— Caius Gracchus
“And yet a widespread opinion prevails that he became an unmitigated demagogue, and far more brilliant than Tiberius in his pursuit of popularity with the masses. But the truth is not so; rather it seems that he fell into political life more from a kind of necessity than from choice.”
— Caius Gracchus
“It is not to the rostrum that I am sending you off, Gaius, as before, to serve as tribune and lawgiver, nor to a glorious war, where, if something happened to you, you would at least leave me an honored grief in return”
— Caius Gracchus
Plutarch paired the two Gracchi as a single set of Roman lives, and Caius's Life opens directly from the aftermath of Tiberius's murder, with Caius withdrawing from public life before being drawn back in. Plutarch is explicit that Caius was nine years younger and that Tiberius had died before turning thirty, framing Caius's career as continuing and intensifying his brother's reform agenda rather than starting fresh.
Plutarch credits Caius with a grain law lowering prices for the urban poor, a judiciary law that added three hundred knights to the three hundred senators so that the courts were shared between them rather than controlled solely by the Senate, and proposals for new colonies at Tarentum and Capua along with extending citizenship to the Latins. Together these measures reached the poor, the equestrian class, and Rome's Italian allies simultaneously.
Rather than confronting him directly at first, the Senate set up a rival tribune, Livius Drusus, to propose measures even more generous than Caius's own, aiming to win the people's favor away from him without appearing to oppose reform itself. Plutarch presents this as a deliberate and effective strategy that eroded Caius's base ahead of his failed bid for a third tribunate.
After losing political support and amid rioting connected to the repeal of his colonial legislation, the Senate passed what Plutarch calls an unprecedented decree arming the consul Opimius against him. Caius fled with his ally Fulvius Flaccus and was killed along with his companions; his severed head was carried off for a promised reward of gold equal to its weight.
In one of the Life's most vivid domestic scenes, Caius's wife falls before him at the doorway on the day he goes out to face the crisis, embracing him and their child and telling him this time she is not sending him off to serve as tribune or to a glorious war but to his death. Plutarch uses the scene to humanize the political catastrophe unfolding around Caius.
Plutarch reports that Cornelia bore the deaths of Tiberius and Caius with a composure that struck contemporaries as strange, leading some to think she had grown senseless from age or grief. Plutarch instead attributes her steadiness to good natural gifts and a good upbringing, which he says help human beings withstand fortune even when it overcomes virtue's guard.
Yes; Plutarch describes his quaestorship in Sardinia under the consul Orestes, noting that Caius was a man fond of war and trained in campaigns as well as lawsuits, and that he served far longer than required and returned with an empty purse while others returned enriched.
Plutarch directly challenges the common opinion that Caius became an unrestrained demagogue more brilliant than Tiberius at courting the masses, arguing instead that his entry into political life came more from necessity than from personal choice or ambition.
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