Plutarch · a new plain-English translation from the original language
We, having given our first account, have no lesser sufferings than these to observe in the Roman pairing, when we set the life of Tiberius and Gaius alongside it. These men were sons of Tiberius Gracchus, who, having become censor of the Romans and having twice held the consulship and having celebrated two triumphs, had a dignity more splendid still from his virtue than from these honors.
For this reason too he was thought worthy to take Cornelia, daughter of Scipio who had defeated Hannibal, after that man's death, though he had not been his friend but had actually been at odds with him. And it is said that once a pair of snakes was caught on his bed, and that the seers, examining the portent, would not allow him to kill or release both, but drew a distinction concerning one of the two, holding that if the male were killed and removed it would bring death to Tiberius, but if the female, to Cornelia.
So Tiberius, both loving his wife and thinking it more fitting that he, being the elder, should die while she was still young, killed the male of the snakes and let the female go; and then, not long after, he himself died, leaving twelve children born to him by Cornelia.
Cornelia, taking up the children and the household, showed herself so prudent, so devoted to her children, and so magnanimous, that Tiberius did not seem to have chosen badly in choosing to die rather than such a wife; she indeed even refused the courtship of King Ptolemy, who offered to share his crown with her in marriage,
and while widowed she lost her other children, yet a daughter survived who was wed to the younger Scipio, along with the pair of sons, Tiberius and Gaius, about whom this account is written, and she raised them with such devotion that, though acknowledged to be the best-endowed by nature of all the Romans, they seemed to owe their virtue more to their upbringing than to their nature.
But since, just as the likeness of the Dioscuri as they are molded and painted has some difference in form between the boxer and the runner, so among those young men, amid a great resemblance in courage and self-control, and further in generosity and eloquence and greatness of soul, there blossomed forth and became visible great dissimilarities in their deeds and in their political conduct, it seems to me not amiss to set these forth first.
In the first place, then, in the look of his face and in his glance and movement Tiberius was gentle and composed, while Gaius was intense and vehement, so that even in public speaking the one stood in a single spot in an orderly manner, while the other, first among the Romans, used to walk about upon the platform and pull the toga from his shoulder as he spoke, just as it is recorded that Cleon the Athenian was the first of public speakers to pull back his cloak and slap his thigh.
Further, Gaius's speech was fearsome and full of passion, given to exaggeration, while Tiberius's was more pleasant and better suited to arousing pity; in diction the latter was pure and worked out with precision, while Gaius's was persuasive and highly wrought. So too in mode of life and at table Tiberius was simple and unaffected, while Gaius, though temperate and severe in comparison with others, was in his rivalry with his brother given to novelty and fastidiousness, as
those around Drusus proved, when they showed that he had bought silver dolphins at a price of one thousand two hundred fifty drachmas per pound; and in character, corresponding to the difference in their speech, the one was mild and gentle, the other harsh and passionate, so that often, carried away against his own judgment while speaking, through anger he would sharpen his voice, and utter abuse, and throw his speech into confusion.
For this reason he made use, as a remedy for this deviation, of Licinnius, a servant not without sense, who had a pitch-instrument, with which they raise the tones of the voice; standing behind Gaius as he spoke, whenever he perceived him growing harsh in voice and breaking off through anger, he would sound a soft note, at which Gaius would immediately relax the intensity, both of his passion and of his voice, and would grow gentle and become easy to recall to himself.
Such, then, were the differences between them; but in valor against enemies, in justice toward their subjects, in diligence in office, and in self-control regarding pleasures, they were exactly alike. Tiberius was older by nine years; and this made the political career of each fall in a different period and did no small harm to their actions, since their powers did not flourish together nor combine into one, which, had it come from both at once, would have become great and unsurpassable. One must, then, speak of each separately, and first of the elder.
He, then, straightway from boyhood was so renowned that he was thought worthy of the priesthood of the augurs, so called, on account of his virtue rather than his noble birth. This was made clear by Appius Claudius, a man of consular and censorial rank, and enrolled first according to the dignity of the Roman senate, and far surpassing his contemporaries in pride of spirit. For when the priests were feasting together in the same place, he greeted Tiberius and treated him with great friendliness, and himself proposed a marriage for him with his daughter.
When Tiberius gladly accepted, and the agreement was thus made, Appius, going into his own house, straightway from the doorway called out to his wife in a loud voice, crying, "O Antistia, I have betrothed our Claudia to a husband." And she, astonished, said, "What is the haste, or what the speed? Unless indeed you have found Tiberius Gracchus for her as bridegroom."
I am not unaware that some refer this story to the father of the Gracchi, Tiberius, and to Scipio Africanus; but the majority, as we write it, record it thus: Polybius states that once Scipio Africanus had died, his kinsmen judged Tiberius to be the best man of all and gave Cornelia to him in marriage, since she had been left by her father unbetrothed and unengaged.
The younger Tiberius, then, serving in the campaign in Libya together with the second Scipio, who had his sister as wife, sharing quarters with the general under the same tent, quickly came to understand his nature, which brought forth many great examples for the emulation and imitation of virtue in action, and quickly became first among all the young men in discipline and courage;
and indeed he was the first to mount the wall of the enemy, as Fannius says, who himself claims to have mounted with Tiberius and to have shared in that feat of valor. He also, while present, had great goodwill in the camp, and left behind him longing for himself when he departed.
After that campaign, having been elected quaestor, he was allotted to serve with the consul Gaius Mancinus against the Numantines, a man not wicked, but the most ill-fated of Roman generals; wherefore all the more, amid irrational turns of fortune and adverse circumstances, there shone forth in Tiberius not only his intelligence and courage, but, what was remarkable, also great reverence and honor toward his commander, who under his misfortunes scarcely recognized himself as general anymore,
since he had suffered defeat in a string of major engagements, he tried under cover of darkness to pull back and abandon the camp; but the Numantines noticed, seized the camp at once, fell on the fleeing men and cut down those at the rear, hemming in the whole army and forcing it into rough terrain with no way out; Mancinus, despairing of safety by force, sent heralds to treat of a truce and settlement with them:
but they said they trusted no one except Tiberius alone, and bade him be sent to them; and this trust had grown up because of the young man's own reputation, since word of him circulated widely among the soldiers, and they recalled his father Tiberius, who, having warred against the Iberians and subdued many, made peace with the Numantines, and always kept the people faithful in maintaining it, rightly and justly.
So Tiberius, being sent, and meeting with the men, and persuading them in some matters, and yielding in others, concluded a truce, and thereby manifestly saved twenty thousand Roman citizens, apart from the camp servants and those following outside the ranks.
But all the money taken in the camp the Numantines seized and plundered. Among these were also Tiberius's writing-tablets, containing records and accounts of his quaestorship, which, being anxious to recover, since the army had already advanced on, he turned back to the city, having with him three or four
companions; and calling out the magistrates of the Numantines, he asked to have the tablets returned, so that he might not give his enemies an occasion for slander through being unable to render account of his transactions. The Numantines, glad of this pretext arising from his need, urged him to come inside their city; and while he stood there weighing what to do, they came up close, took hold of his hands, and pleaded earnestly that he no longer regard them as enemies but treat them as friends and place his trust in them.
So it seemed good to Tiberius to do this, since he was anxious about the tablets and feared to provoke the Numantines by seeming to distrust them. Upon entering the city, they first set a meal before him, and made every entreaty that he would eat something in common seated with them; then they gave back the tablets, and bade him take whatever else of their goods he wished. But he took nothing except the frankincense which he used for the public sacrifices, and departed, having embraced and shown friendship to the men.
When he returned to Rome, the whole affair was blamed and denounced as shameful and disgraceful to Rome; but the relatives and friends of the soldiers, being a great part of the people, ran together to Tiberius, attributing the shameful parts of what had happened to the commander, but saying that so many citizens were saved on his account.
Those who took a dim view of the settlement, however, called for imitating the example set by earlier generations; for those men too had thrown naked to the enemy the very generals who had been glad to be released by the Samnites, and had likewise cast forward those who had touched and taken part in the truce, such as quaestors and tribunes, turning upon them the perjury and the dissolution of what had been agreed.
It was then above all that the people displayed their goodwill and zeal toward Tiberius. For they voted that the consul be handed over naked and bound to the Numantines, but spared all the others on account of Tiberius. Scipio too, it seems, gave assistance, being then greatest and most powerful of the Romans; but nonetheless he was blamed for not having saved Mancinus, nor having been eager that the truce made through Tiberius, a man related to him and his friend, be kept firm for the Numantines.
But it seems that the greater part of this disagreement arose from ambition, and from the friends and sophists who were egging Tiberius on; yet this quarrel fell into nothing incurable or base. It seems to me that Tiberius would in no way have fallen into what he suffered, if Scipio Africanus had been present in his political affairs; but as it was, that man being already at Numantia and at war, Tiberius took up the political business concerning the laws, from the following cause.
The Romans, of whatever land of their neighbors they cut off by war, sold part, and made part public land, giving it to be worked by the propertyless and poor among the citizens, who paid a not-large rent into the treasury.
But when the rich began to outbid for these rents and to drive out the poor, a law was written not allowing anyone to hold more than five hundred plethra of land; and for a short time this written law checked their greed, and helped the poor, who remained in their place upon the leased lands and worked the portion each had held from the beginning.
But later the neighboring rich men, transferring the leases to themselves through fictitious persons, and at last openly holding most of it in their own names, the poor, having been driven out, no longer offered themselves eagerly for military service, and neglected the raising of children, so that soon all Italy came to feel a scarcity of free men, and to be filled instead with barbarian slave-pens, through which the rich farmed their estates, having driven out the citizens.
Gaius Laelius, the companion of Scipio, undertook the correction of this; but when the powerful men opposed him, fearing the disturbance he desisted, and was called wise, or prudent — for the word "sapiens" seemed to signify either. But Tiberius, having been elected tribune of the people, straightway set out upon this very undertaking, as most say, spurred on by the rhetorician Diophanes and the philosopher Blossius,
of whom Diophanes was an exile from Mytilene, and the other was from Cumae in Italy itself, having become in the city an intimate of Antipater of Tarsus and honored by him with dedications of philosophical writings; and some also point to his mother Cornelia, who is said to have repeatedly reproached her sons that Rome still spoke of her as Scipio's mother-in-law, and had not yet begun calling her mother of the Gracchi.
Others say that a certain Spurius Postumius was responsible, a contemporary of Tiberius's and his rival in reputation for pleading cases, whom, upon returning from the army, he found far surpassed in reputation and influence and admired, and wished, it seems, to outdo by laying hold of a hazardous political measure carrying great expectation.
His brother Gaius has written in a certain book that Tiberius, traveling to Numantia through Tyrrhenia, and seeing the desolation of the land and the farmers or herdsmen there who were imported slaves and foreigners, first then conceived the policy that would begin countless evils for them. But it was the people themselves who kindled most of the impulse and ambition in him, calling on him through writings inscribed on porticoes and walls and monuments to recover the public land for the poor.
Yet he did not draft the law on his own authority, but used as advisers the citizens foremost in virtue and reputation, among whom was Crassus the high priest, and Mucius Scaevola the jurist, then consul, and Appius Claudius, the father-in-law of Tiberius.
And it seems that no law was ever written more gently or mildly against such great injustice and greed. For those who ought to have paid the penalty for their disobedience, and to have given up with a fine the land they had been enjoying contrary to the laws, he ordered these men only to withdraw, upon receiving compensation, from the land they had unjustly acquired, and to admit into it those citizens who needed help,
But although the correction was so reasonable, the people were content, letting bygones be bygones, only to be free of injustice for the future; while the rich and the propertied, hating the law out of greed and hating the lawgiver out of anger and rivalry, tried to turn the people away from it, claiming that Tiberius was bringing in a redistribution of land to throw the state into confusion, and was stirring up everything.
But they accomplished nothing; for Tiberius, contending for a fine and just cause with a manner of speech able to adorn even lesser matters, was formidable and unanswerable, whenever, with the people crowded around the platform, he stood and spoke concerning the poor — how the wild beasts that range over Italy each have a den and a lair,
and a refuge to retreat to, yet the men who wage war and perish on Italy's behalf possess a portion of nothing except air and sunlight; lacking house and hearth they roam about with wives and children in tow, while their commanders mislead them, urging the troops in the thick of combat to shield ancestral graves and altars from the foe — for not a single one of this great multitude of Romans owns a family altar, nor a family burial-place, but instead they wage war and perish so that others may enjoy luxury and riches, styled rulers of the earth even as they hold not one clod of ground that belongs to them.
These words, descending upon the people — already roused and rising to their feet in sympathy — from a great spirit and genuine passion, none of his opponents could withstand; so, abandoning any attempt to speak against him, they turned instead to Marcus Octavius, one of the tribunes, a young man of grave and orderly character,
and a companion and intimate of Tiberius; for this reason he at first drew back out of respect for him. But when many powerful men begged and pressed him, he was, as it were, forced into opposing Tiberius and blocking the law. Now among the tribunes the power of veto is absolute: the many can accomplish nothing by their wish if a single man stands opposed.
Provoked by this, Tiberius withdrew the humane law and brought forward instead one more pleasing to the many and harsher against wrongdoers, ordering them simply to give up the land they held contrary to the earlier laws.
So there were, one might almost say, daily contests between him and Octavius upon the platform, in which, although they opposed each other with the utmost zeal and rivalry, it is said that neither ever spoke ill of the other, nor did an unseemly word ever fall from either in anger against the other. For it seems that a noble nature and a sound upbringing govern and adorn the mind not only in revelry, but in ambition and anger as well.
But when Tiberius saw that Octavius himself was bound by the law, holding a large portion of the public land, he asked him to let go of his opposition, promising to make good his loss out of his own property, though it was not considerable; and when Octavius would not yield, he issued a decree forbidding all the other magistrates to transact business until the vote on the law had been decided;
and he put his own seals upon the temple of Cronus, so that the quaestors could take nothing from it nor deposit anything in it, and he proclaimed a penalty against any praetors who disobeyed, so that all of them, in fear, gave up the administration proper to each.
At this the wealthy put on mourning attire and moved through the forum looking wretched and downcast, yet all the while they were secretly conspiring against Tiberius and recruiting men to kill him, a fact so openly known that he took to wearing, strapped beneath his clothes, a short bandit's blade called a dolon.
When the day arrived and the people were called to the vote, the water-jars were seized by the rich, and there was great confusion in the proceedings. Nevertheless, since Tiberius's supporters were able to overpower them by numbers and had rallied for this purpose, Manlius and Fulvius, men of consular rank, fell upon Tiberius, taking hold of his hands and weeping, and begged him to stop.
He, aware that what was coming was already close to disaster, and out of respect for the men, asked what they bade him do; they said they were not competent to advise on so grave a matter, but urged and persuaded him to entrust it to the senate. But when the senate, meeting, accomplished nothing, because of the power the rich held in it, he turned to a course neither lawful nor fitting — to remove Octavius from office, having no other means of bringing the law to a vote.
And first he openly begged him, addressing kindly words to him and taking his hands, to yield and grant a favor to the people, who asked what was just and would receive only a small return for great toils and dangers. But when Octavius rejected the appeal, Tiberius declared that two officeholders of equal power could not, once divided over matters of such weight, continue on without open conflict, and that as he viewed it there existed just a single cure for the situation: that one of the two step down from his post,
and he bade Octavius himself put to the people first the vote concerning himself, saying that he would at once step down and become a private citizen, if the citizens so decided. But when Octavius was unwilling, Tiberius said he himself would put the vote concerning him, unless he changed his mind upon reflection.
For that time he dismissed the assembly on these terms; but on the next day, when the people had assembled again, he mounted the platform once more and tried to persuade Octavius; but since he was unpersuadable, he brought in a law depriving him of his tribunate, and at once called on the citizens to cast their vote,
there being thirty-five tribes; and when seventeen had already cast their vote, and with one more added Octavius would have to become a private citizen, Tiberius ordered a halt and again pleaded with Octavius, embracing him in sight of the people and kissing him, begging earnestly that he neither allow himself to be dishonored nor bring upon Octavius the blame for so harsh and grim a measure.
They say that Octavius did not listen to these entreaties wholly unmoved or unyielding, but that his eyes filled with tears, and he was silent for a long time; yet when he looked toward the rich and the propertied men standing together, out of shame, it seems, and fear of the disgrace among them, he endured every hazard with no want of nobility, and bade Tiberius do what he wished.
So once the law had passed in this way, Tiberius directed a freedman of his to haul Octavius bodily off the platform; since it was his own freedmen he employed as attendants, the spectacle of Octavius being hauled off in humiliation seemed all the more wretched to behold.
The people rushed upon him, and when the rich men ran together and held out their hands to protect him, Octavius was with difficulty saved, snatched away and escaping the crowd; but a loyal slave of his, who had stationed himself in front to shield him, lost his eyesight in the struggle — something Tiberius did not want, and when he realized what was going on he hurried down to the commotion as fast as he could.
After this the law concerning the land was ratified, and three commissioners were appointed to handle the division and distribution of land: Tiberius, Appius Claudius (his father-in-law), and his brother Gaius Gracchus, who was absent at the time, then on campaign with Scipio near Numantia.
Tiberius carried these measures through in quiet, with no one opposing him, and moreover set up as tribune in Octavius's place, not one of the prominent men, but a certain Mucius, his own client; the powerful men, displeased at all this and fearing the growth of Tiberius's power, insulted him in the senate at every turn — when he asked, as was customary, for a tent at public expense,
so that he might have shelter while distributing the land, they refused to give it, though others had often received one for lesser needs, and they fixed his daily allowance at nine obols, on the motion of Publius Nasica, who had given himself over unsparingly to his hatred of Tiberius; for he possessed a very great deal of public land, and bore it ill to be compelled to give it up.
The people grew even more inflamed after one of Tiberius's friends died without warning and his body showed ominous marks; declaring that poison had killed him, they ran together to the funeral and lifted up the bier and stood by him as he was buried, not thinking it an unreasonable suspicion, poisoning.
For the corpse burst open and a quantity of corrupted fluids poured out, so that it extinguished the flame; and though they brought other wood again, it would not burn until the body had been carried to another place, and only with much labor did the fire at last catch upon it. Stirred further by this, Tiberius worked the crowd up even more, put on mourning dress, and, presenting his children before them, pleaded with the people to look after them and their mother, as though he no longer expected to survive himself.
When Attalus Philometor died, Eudemus of Pergamum brought a will in which the Roman people was named heir to the kingdom; immediately Tiberius, currying favor with the people, put forward a law providing that the king's treasure, once transported to Rome, be distributed among those citizens receiving land grants, so they could equip themselves and afford the tools of farming.
As for the cities that had belonged to Attalus's kingdom, he said it was not proper for the senate to deliberate about them at all, but that he himself would lay a proposal before the people. By this above all he gave offense to the senate; and Pompeius stood up and said that, being a neighbor of Tiberius, he was aware that Eudemus of Pergamum had given him a king's diadem along with a purple robe, as though he were being groomed to reign one day over Rome,
and Quintus Metellus reproached Tiberius, saying that when his father held the censorship, as often as he returned home after dinner the citizens used to put out their lamps, fearing they might seem to have spent too much time in feasting and drinking parties, whereas to this man the boldest and neediest of the common people carried torches at night;
and Titus Annius, a man neither decent nor sober, but thought unanswerable in speech in question and answer, challenged Tiberius to a formal contest, declaring that he had indeed dishonored his fellow magistrate, who was sacred and inviolable by the laws. When many raised an uproar, Tiberius leapt up, called the people together, and, ordering Annius to be brought before them, wished to accuse him.
But Annius, far inferior in both eloquence and reputation, took refuge in his own cleverness, and asked to be allowed to put a small question before Tiberius spoke. When Tiberius agreed to let him ask, and silence fell, Annius said, "If you wish to dishonor and insult me, and I call upon one of your fellow tribunes to help me, and he rises to help, and you grow angry — will you then take away his office too?"
At this question Tiberius, they say, was thrown into such perplexity that, though of all men the readiest in speech and the boldest in confidence, he fell silent.
Then he dismissed the assembly. But perceiving that the political actions taken against Octavius had roused not only the powerful but also the common people to unusual passion — for it seemed a great and noble thing, the dignity of the tribunes, preserved down to that very day, now to have been abolished and outraged — he delivered a speech to the people, from which it is not out of place to set out a few of his arguments, so that the persuasiveness and density of the man's reasoning may be understood.
For he said that the tribune is sacred and inviolable, because he is consecrated to the people and stands at the head of the people. If, then, he turns against the people and does them wrong, and cuts short their power and takes away their right to vote, he has by his own act deprived himself
of the honor for which he received it, since he is no longer doing the things for which it was given. For if it were necessary, one would allow even a tribune who tore down the Capitol and set fire to the dockyard — and in doing these things he would be a wicked tribune, yet still a tribune; but should he turn against the popular will, then he ceases to be a tribune whatsoever. How then is it not monstrous that a tribune should be able to lead a consul off to prison, and yet the people should not be able to take away the tribune's power when he uses it against the very one who gave it to him? For the people choose the consul and the tribune alike.
And indeed kingship, in addition to holding every kind of authority within itself, is also consecrated to the divine by the greatest sacred rites — yet the city expelled Tarquin when he did wrong, and because of the outrage of one man that ancestral rule, which had even founded Rome, was overthrown. And what is so holy and revered in Rome as the virgins who tend and guard the undying fire? Yet if one of them should sin, she is buried alive; for by committing impiety against the gods they no longer keep that inviolability which they hold on account of the gods.
So neither is a tribune who wrongs the people entitled to keep the inviolability which exists on the people's account; for the very power by which he is strong, that same power he destroys. And indeed, if he received the tribunate justly, by the vote of most of the tribes, how would it not be still more just for him to be removed from it when all the tribes vote against him?
Nothing is so sacred and inviolable as offerings dedicated to the gods; yet no one has ever prevented the people from using these, moving them, and transferring them as it wishes. It was therefore permitted to the people to transfer the tribunate too, like a dedicated offering, to another man. And that the office is neither inviolable nor irremovable is clear from the fact that men holding office have often, of their own accord, sworn themselves out of it and resigned it.
Such, then, were the main points of Tiberius's defense. But since his friends, seeing the threats and the conspiracy forming against him, thought he ought to secure another tribunate for the year to come, he again won over the multitude with further laws, cutting down the length of military service, granting the people the right to appeal from the judges, and mixing into the panel of judges — who were then drawn from the senators — an equal number from the equestrian order,
and in every way now curtailing the power of the senate, moved more by anger and rivalry than by any reckoning of justice and advantage. When, as the voting proceeded, they perceived that their opponents were prevailing — for not all of the people were present — first they turned to abusing their fellow magistrates and dragged out the time, and then they dismissed the assembly, ordering it to reconvene the next day.
And first Tiberius went down into the forum and begged the people, humble and in tears; then, saying that he feared his enemies might force their way into his home after dark to murder him, he moved the people so much that a great many of them camped around his house and kept watch there through the night.
At daybreak the man who kept the birds by which they took the auspices arrived, and threw out food for them. But they would not come forward, except one only, and even that one only when the man shook the cage hard; and even this one did not touch the food, but raising its left wing and stretching out its leg, it retreated once more into the cage. This incident brought to Tiberius's mind a previous omen as well.
For he had a helmet which he used in battle, splendidly adorned and conspicuous; into this snakes had crept unnoticed and laid eggs, and the eggs had hatched there. Because of this, Tiberius grew even more troubled by what had happened with the birds. Nevertheless he went out, on learning that the people were gathering above, around the Capitol.
And before he went out he stumbled against the threshold, so violent a blow that the nail of his big toe was split, and the blood showed through his sandal. When he had gone forward a little way, crows were seen fighting above a roof-tile on his left; and though, as would be expected, many bystanders happened to be nearby, a rock knocked loose by one of the crows landed right next to Tiberius's foot. This made even the boldest of those around
him stop short. But Blossius of Cumae, who happened to be there, declared it would bring great shame and disgrace if Tiberius — son of Gracchus, grandson of Scipio Africanus, and champion of the Roman people — should, out of fear of a crow, fail to answer the citizens' summons; and that this disgrace would not be met with laughter from his enemies, but would rather be shouted out against him before the people as proof that he was already acting the tyrant and living in luxury.
At the same time many came running to Tiberius from his friends on the Capitol, urging him to hurry, since things there were going well; and at first, indeed, his arrival was met splendidly — as soon as he appeared they raised a friendly shout, and as he climbed up they received him eagerly, and formed ranks around him so that no stranger might come near.
But when Mucius began again to call the tribes to vote, nothing of the usual order could be carried through, because of an uproar arising from those at the outer edge, some pushing and others being pushed as their opponents forced their way in and mixed among them. Meanwhile Fulvius Flaccus, a man of senatorial rank, stood forth in plain view, and since he could not make himself heard by shouting, signaled with his hand that he wished to say something privately to Tiberius.
And when Tiberius ordered the crowd to make way, Fulvius climbed up with difficulty, came to him, and reported that the senate was in session, and that the rich, unable to persuade the consul, were themselves planning to kill Tiberius on their own authority, and had armed for this purpose a great number of slaves and friends.
When Tiberius announced this to those around him, they immediately hitched up their togas, and, tearing apart the staves the attendants use to hold back the crowd, they divided the pieces among themselves so as to defend against the attackers with the broken fragments.
Those farther off, wondering at what was happening and asking what it meant, Tiberius touched his head with his hand, signaling by this gesture the danger he was in, since his voice could not reach them over the noise. Yet his adversaries, seeing this, ran to the senate and reported that Tiberius was asking for a diadem, and that this was the meaning of his touching his head.
All were thrown into confusion at this; and Nasica demanded that the consul come to the defense of the city and put down the tyrant. When the consul answered mildly that he would use no violence, and would not put any citizen to death without trial, but that if the people, persuaded or forced by Tiberius, should vote for anything unlawful, he would not regard that vote as binding — Nasica leapt up and said, "Since, then, the magistrate betrays the city, let those who wish
to defend the laws follow me." And as he said this he threw the fold of his toga over his head and set off toward the Capitol. Each of those following him wrapped his toga around his arm and shoved aside whoever stood in his way, no one daring to resist men of such standing, but fleeing and trampling one another instead.
Now those in Nasica's party had brought clubs and staves from their own homes; while the men themselves, as the fleeing crowd broke apart the benches, snatched up the broken pieces and the legs, and climbed up toward Tiberius, striking down those posted in front of him; and of these there was rout and slaughter. As for Tiberius himself, as he fled, someone caught hold of his garments.
He let go of his toga and, fleeing in his tunic, stumbled and fell over some of those who had already fallen in front of him. As he was rising, the first man to land an open blow to his skull, using a broken bench-leg, was Publius Satyreius, one of his fellow tribunes; Lucius Rufus boasted that he had delivered the second strike, treating it as some mark of distinction. As for the remainder, upward of three hundred men perished, cut down with clubs and stones, none by the sword.
This, they say, was the first civil strife in Rome, since the kings were overthrown, to be settled by the blood and slaughter of citizens; the others — none of them small, nor over small matters — men had ended by yielding to one another, the powerful out of fear of the many, the people out of reverence for the senate. And even then it seems that Tiberius could have been persuaded to yield without much difficulty, and would have given way still more easily, without bloodshed
and wounds, if his enemies had approached him; for there were no more than three thousand men around him. But it seems that the conspiracy against him arose more from the anger and hatred of the rich than from the pretexts they alleged; and a great proof of this is the savage and lawless outrage done to his corpse — for they did not permit his brother, though he begged for it, to retrieve the corpse and give it burial after dark; instead they cast it into the river together with the other bodies. And this was not the end of it,
but they also banished some of his friends without trial, and seizing others put them to death — among these the orator Diophanes perished. A certain Gaius Villius they shut up in a jar together with vipers and serpents, and so destroyed him. Blossius of Cumae was hauled before the consuls, and upon being questioned about what had happened, admitted that he had done everything at Tiberius's command.
When Nasica put to him the question, "Suppose, then, that Tiberius had directed you to burn down the Capitol?" he answered at first that Tiberius would never have issued such an order; but when several people pressed him repeatedly with the same question, he replied, "But had he given that command, it would have been proper for me to carry it out; for Tiberius would never have ordered such a thing unless it served the people's interest." This man later escaped and went to Aristonicus in Asia, and when Aristonicus's cause was destroyed, he took his own life.
The senate, to court the people's favor given the present situation, no longer opposed the distribution of the land, and proposed that the people choose a new commissioner in place of Tiberius. Taking the vote, they chose Publius Crassus, who was related to Gracchus; for his daughter Licinia was married to Gaius Gracchus.
Yet Cornelius Nepos reports that the woman Gaius married was not Crassus's daughter but rather the daughter of Brutus, who celebrated a triumph over the Lusitanians; but most authorities record it as we have written it. Since the people bore the death of Tiberius badly and were plainly waiting for an opportunity for vengeance, and since lawsuits were already being threatened against Nasica, the senate, fearing for the man, voted — though there was no need for it — to send him to Asia.
For people did not conceal their hostility whenever they met him, but grew savage and shouted abuse wherever they came upon him, calling him accursed and a tyrant, one who had defiled with the blood of murder the most sacred and most awesome of the city's holy things — a body inviolable and sacred. Thus Nasica withdrew secretly from Italy, although he was bound by the greatest sacred offices, for he was the chief and first of the priests; and wandering abroad in disgrace and without honor, not long after he ended his life near Pergamum.
It should come as no surprise that the populace hated Nasica so intensely, when even Scipio Africanus — whom the Romans think no man ever loved more justly or more deeply — very nearly fell from favor and was stripped of the people's goodwill, because, first, on learning of Tiberius's death while at Numantia, he cried out, quoting from Homer, that so may perish anyone else who does such things,
and then, when Gaius and Fulvius questioned him before the assembly as to what he thought about Tiberius's death, he gave an answer that did not please them, being displeased with what Tiberius had done as a politician. Because of this the people shouted him down as he spoke, something that had never happened to him before, and he himself was provoked into speaking ill of the people. These matters, however, have been written out in detail in the Life of Scipio.