Plutarch · a new plain-English translation from the original language
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, so that he even gave some people occasion to say of him that he disliked and had rejected the political course of Tiberius.
He was also altogether a mere youth, for he was nine years younger than his brother in age, and Tiberius had died before he was even thirty. But as time went on, he gradually revealed a character quite alien to idleness, softness, drinking, and money-making, and by preparing his rhetoric like fledgling wings for public life, he made it clear that he would not remain at rest,
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, and there was much talk among them that they would not allow Caius to advance to the tribunate.
It happened, quite by chance, that he was allotted the quaestorship in Sardinia under the consul Orestes; and while this pleased his enemies, it did not distress Caius. For being a man fond of war and trained no less in campaigns than in lawsuits, and still dreading political life and the speaker's platform, yet unable to resist the people and his friends who kept calling on him, he welcomed that assignment abroad wholeheartedly.
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.
The orator Cicero too records the story that when Caius was steering clear of every office and had opted for a quiet life, a vision of his brother came to him while he slept, and, speaking to him, said: "Why then, Caius, do you delay? There is no escape; one life is fated for us both, and one death, in living our political lives on behalf of the people."
So Caius, once he was in Sardinia, gave every proof of excellence, and far surpassed all the young men both in contests against the enemy and in fair dealing toward the subject peoples, and in goodwill and honor toward his commander; and in self-control, plainness of living, and diligence he outdid even his elders,
and when a severe and sickly winter came upon Sardinia and the commander asked the cities for clothing for the soldiers, they sent to Rome asking to be excused. When the senate accepted their plea and ordered the commander to clothe the soldiers from some other source, and he was at a loss and the soldiers were suffering, Caius went around the cities himself and made them send clothing and aid to the Romans of their own accord.
This news, reported back to Rome and thought to be the preliminary skirmishes of demagoguery, threw the senate into confusion. First, when envoys arrived from King Micipsa in Libya saying that the king, out of favor to Caius Gracchus, had sent grain to the commander in Sardinia, they were angered and expelled them; then they made a decree that a relief force be sent for the soldiers but that Orestes remain, on the assumption that Caius too, because of his office, would remain along with him.
But when this news fell upon him, he at once sailed off in anger, and appearing in Rome contrary to expectation, he was blamed not only by his enemies, but it also seemed strange to the many that a quaestor should leave before his commanding officer. Nevertheless, when an accusation was brought against him before the censors, he asked to speak, and so changed the minds of his hearers that he came away thought to have suffered the greatest wrongs,
for he said that he had served twelve years, though others served their required time in ten; that as quaestor he had remained with his commander for three years, though the law allowed him to return after one; and that he alone of those who served had brought his purse out full and carried it back empty, while the others, having drunk up the wine they brought, came back here carrying their jars full of silver and gold.
After this, they brought other charges and lawsuits against him again, alleging that he was inciting the allies to revolt and had taken part in the conspiracy exposed at Fregellae; but he cleared himself of every suspicion and, having shown himself blameless, at once set out for the tribunate, with all the notable men uniformly opposed to him, yet with so great a crowd streaming into the city from Italy to join in supporting his candidacy that lodgings ran short for many, and when the Field could not hold the multitude, their voices resounded together from the roofs and tiles.
So great a force did the powerful men bring to bear on the people and so far did they diminish Caius's hope that, contrary to his expectation, he was proclaimed not first but fourth. Yet once he had taken office, he was at once first of all, being powerful in speech as no other was, and his grief giving him great freedom of speech as he lamented his brother.
For on this ground, using every pretext, he led the people around, reminding them of what had happened and setting beside it the deeds of their ancestors: how they had made war even on the Faliscans on behalf of a certain tribune Genucius who had been insulted, and had condemned Caius Veturius to death because he alone did not give way to a tribune passing through the forum: "But before your very eyes," he said, "these men beat Tiberius to death with clubs, and dragged his corpse straight across the city so as to hurl it from the Capitol into the river;
and those of his friends who were caught were put to death without trial, although it is our ancestral custom, if anyone under a capital charge does not answer the summons, that a trumpeter should go to his door at dawn and summon him by trumpet, and the judges are not to cast their vote against him before that. So cautious and guarded were they in matters of judgment."
Having thus roused the people beforehand with such speeches — and he was also the loudest-voiced and most vigorous in speaking — he brought forward two laws: one, that if the people had removed any magistrate from office, that man should not be permitted to hold a second office; the other, that if any magistrate had banished a citizen without trial, judgment concerning him should be given to the people.
Of these laws, the one directly disgraced Marcus Octavius, who had been deposed from the tribunate by Tiberius; the other applied to Popillius, for he, as praetor, had banished the friends of Tiberius. And Popillius, not standing trial, fled from Italy; but the other law Caius himself withdrew, saying he was granting this favor to his mother Cornelia, who had asked it for Octavius.
And the people admired this and agreed to it, honoring Cornelia no less for her sons than for her father; indeed they later set up a bronze statue of her and inscribed on it, "Cornelia, Mother of the Gracchi." Many sayings of Caius about her are remembered, spoken in the forceful and popular manner of oratory, against one of his enemies: "You," he said, "revile Cornelia, who bore Tiberius?"
And when the man who had reviled her had himself been accused of softness, Caius said: "With what boldness do you compare yourself to Cornelia? Have you borne children as she did? And yet all the Romans know that she was without a husband longer than you have been a man." Such was the bitterness of his words, and one can find many similar examples among his writings.
Of the laws he brought forward to gratify the people and to undermine the senate, one was an agrarian law distributing public land to the poor; another was a military law ordering that clothing be furnished at public expense and nothing deducted from the soldiers' pay for it, and that no one younger than seventeen be enrolled as a soldier; another was an alliance law giving the Italians equal voting rights with the citizens.
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 — for they alone judged lawsuits, and were for this reason feared by both the people and the knights — he added three hundred of the knights to the existing three hundred senators, and made judgments common to the six hundred.
In bringing forward this law he is said to have taken particular pains in other respects, and, whereas all the demagogues before him had faced toward the senate house and the so-called comitium, he was the first to turn instead toward the forum and address the people from there, and to do so from then on, thereby, by a slight change and shift of posture, setting a great matter in motion and in a sense transferring the constitution from aristocracy to democracy, as though it were the many, not the senate, whose views speakers ought to aim at.
And when the people not only accepted this law but also granted him the power to select those who would serve as judges from among the knights, a kind of monarchical power had come to surround him, so that even the senate endured his advising it. And he always advised something fitting for it, proposing measures suitable to that body:
such was the decree about the grain, most moderate and excellent, which the propraetor Fabius sent word of from Iberia, and which he persuaded the senate to sell and to send back the money to the cities, and further to bring a charge against Fabius for making his administration burdensome and intolerable to the people — for which he gained great reputation and goodwill in the provinces.
He also proposed that colonies be sent out, that roads be built, and that granaries be constructed, setting himself over all these undertakings as their director and administrator, and wearying at none of them, however many and great, but with a certain marvelous speed and diligence carrying out each as though it were his only task, so that even those who thoroughly hated and feared him were astonished at his thoroughgoing efficiency and capacity to bring things to completion.
The many marveled even at the very sight of him, seeing hanging about him a crowd of contractors, craftsmen, envoys, magistrates, soldiers, and scholars, all of whom he met with ease, preserving dignity within his affability, and giving to each what suited him individually, thereby exposing as malicious slanderers those who called him fearsome or altogether vulgar or violent. So much more formidable was he as a popular leader in his private dealings and actions than in his speeches from the platform.
He was especially devoted to road-building, taking care at once for utility and for grace and beauty, for the roads were laid out straight through the country, unwavering, and were paved in part with cut stone, in part packed firm with rammed sand. Hollows were filled in, and wherever torrents or ravines cut across, bridges joined the way, the elevation on either side being made equal and parallel, so that the whole work presented a level and handsome appearance throughout.
In addition to this, he measured out the entire road by the mile — a mile falling a little short of eight stadia — and set up stone pillars as markers of the distance. He also placed other stones, spaced closer together, on either side of the road, so that men on horseback could easily mount from them without needing a groom to help them up.
When the people, in return for these things, exalted him and stood ready to show him goodwill in any way whatever, he once said in a public speech that he himself would ask a favor — one which, if granted, he would value above everything, and if refused, he would hold no grudge against them for it. This remark was taken to be a request for the consulship, and it gave everyone the expectation that he was seeking the consulship and the tribunate at the same time.
When the consular elections were under way and everyone was in suspense, he was seen bringing Gaius Fannius down to the Campus and canvassing for him alongside his friends — and this carried great weight in Fannius's favor. Fannius was made consul, while Gaius himself was declared tribune for the second time, though he neither canvassed nor stood as a candidate, but was chosen by the eager will of the people.
When he saw that the Senate was openly hostile to him, and that Fannius's goodwill toward him had grown dull, he again tried to win the multitude over by other laws, proposing that colonies be sent out to Tarentum and Capua, and inviting the Latins to share in Roman citizenship. The Senate, fearing that he might become altogether unmanageable, introduced a new and unaccustomed device for turning the people aside — competing with him for popular favor and granting concessions beyond what was best.
For one of Gaius's fellow tribunes was Livius Drusus, a man born of no worse family than any Roman and no less well brought up, and in character, eloquence, and wealth a rival of those most honored and most powerful because of these things. It was to him, then, that the most prominent men turned, urging him to take up the fight against Gaius and join them against the man — not by using force or opposing the multitude outright, but by governing in a way pleasing to them and granting favors for the sake of which it would even be honorable to incur their hatred.
Livius, then, having placed his tribunate at the Senate's disposal for this purpose, drafted laws that aimed neither at what was good nor at what was profitable, but at one thing only — to outdo Gaius in pleasing and gratifying the multitude, as if he were competing in a comedy, hastening and striving to surpass him. By this the Senate made it perfectly plain that it was not displeased with Gaius's policies as such, but wished only to destroy the man himself or utterly humble him.
For when Gaius proposed two colonies and enrolled the most respectable citizens in them, they accused him of currying favor with the people; but when Livius proposed to settle twelve colonies and to send three thousand of the poor to each, they lent him their support. And whereas Gaius was hated as flattering the multitude because he distributed land to the poor while requiring each to pay a rent to the public treasury, Livius pleased them by removing even this rent from those who received allotments.
Further, Gaius gave offense by granting the Latins equal voting rights, but when Livius proposed that no Latin might be beaten with rods even on campaign, they supported his law. And indeed Livius himself, in his public speeches, always said that he proposed these measures because the Senate approved of them and cared for the welfare
of the multitude — which was, in fact, the only useful thing to come of his policies. For the people became gentler toward the Senate; whereas before it had been suspicious and hostile toward the Senate's most eminent members, Livius dissolved and soothed this rancor and harshness, by representing himself as acting on their own judgment in courting the people's favor and granting them concessions.
The greatest proof of Drusus's goodwill toward the people and of his justice was that he was never seen proposing anything for his own benefit or on his own behalf; for he sent out other men as founders of the colonies, and had nothing to do with the handling of the funds, whereas Gaius took upon himself the largest and most important share of such business.
When Rubrius, one of his fellow tribunes, proposed to resettle Carthage, which had been destroyed by Scipio, and Gaius, chosen by lot, sailed off to Libya for the founding of the colony, Drusus took the opportunity of his absence to press his advantage still further, winning over and drawing the people to himself, above all by the slanders he spread against Fulvius.
This Fulvius was a friend of Gaius, and had been chosen as his colleague for the distribution of the land. He was a turbulent man, hated outright by the Senate, and suspected by others too of stirring up the allied cities and secretly inciting the Italians to revolt. Though these charges were made without proof and without being tested, Fulvius himself lent them credibility, being a man of unhealthy and unpeaceable temperament.
This above all undermined Gaius, who bore the brunt of the hatred; and when Scipio Africanus died from no apparent cause, and certain marks of blows and violence seemed to appear on the corpse — as has been written in his own Life — the greater part of the slander fell upon Fulvius, who was Scipio's enemy and had that very day railed against him from the rostrum,
but suspicion also touched Gaius. And so terrible a deed, dared against the foremost and greatest of the Romans, met with no justice and was not even brought to trial; for the people rose up and put a stop to the inquiry on Gaius's behalf, fearing that he might become entangled in the charge if the murder were investigated. This, then, had happened earlier,
and in Libya, in connection with the founding of Carthage — which Gaius named Junonia, that is, Heraea — they say many hindrances arose from divine displeasure. For the first standard, when the wind snatched at it, was broken even though the bearer held it fast, and a squall of wind scattered the sacred offerings laid upon the altars and flung them beyond the boundaries that had been marked out for the founding, while wolves came upon the boundary-markers themselves, tore them up, and carried them far away,
nevertheless, Gaius, having arranged and set everything in order, returned to Rome within seventy days in all, on learning that Fulvius was being hard pressed by Drusus, and that affairs required his presence: for Lucius Opimius, an oligarchic man of great power in the Senate, had earlier failed in his bid for the consulship when Gaius put forward Fannius and secured his election over him;
but now, with many supporting him, he was expected to win the consulship, and, once consul, to overthrow Gaius, since his power was already withering in a way, and the people had grown sated with such policies, both because there were now many demagogues courting their favor and because the Senate was yielding to them of its own accord.
On his return, he first moved his residence from the Palatine down to the district below the Forum, as being more in keeping with the common people, since it was there that most of the humble and the poor happened to live. Next he published the rest of his laws, intending to bring them to a vote. As a crowd gathered around him from every side, the Senate persuaded the consul Fannius to expel from the city all but Roman citizens,
and when a strange and unusual proclamation was made that none of the allies or friends of Rome should show themselves in the city during those days, Gaius issued a counter-proclamation denouncing the consul and promising to help the allies if they stayed. Yet he did not, in fact, help; instead, seeing one of his own guest-friends and acquaintances being dragged off by Fannius's officers, he passed by without coming to his aid — whether because he already feared that his strength was failing him and dared not put it to the test, or because, as he said, he did not wish to give his enemies grounds for starting a brawl and a scuffle which they were looking for.
It happened, too, that he fell into anger with his fellow magistrates over the following matter. The people were about to watch a gladiatorial show in the Forum, and most of the magistrates had built viewing-stands around it and were letting out seats for hire. Gaius ordered them to tear these down, so that the poor might be able to watch from those places without paying.
When no one paid him any heed, he waited for the night before the show, and, taking with him all the workmen he had under contract, tore down the stands and left the ground clear for the people by daybreak. By this act he seemed to the multitude to have shown himself a man, but he vexed his fellow magistrates, who thought it reckless and violent. And because of this he is thought to have lost his bid for a third tribunate, even though he received the most votes, his colleagues having made the announcement and declaration unjustly and by foul means.
But this matter was disputed. He took his defeat with no moderation, and when his enemies mocked him, he is said to have retorted, rather more boldly than he should have, that they were laughing a Sardonic laugh, not knowing what darkness his policies had spread over them.
When they had established Opimius as consul and were repealing many of his laws and undoing the arrangement of Carthage, provoking Gaius so that, given cause for anger, he might be put to death, he held his peace for the first while; but when his friends, and especially Fulvius, urged him on, he set out once more to gather men to oppose the consul.
At this point they say his mother, too, joined in the agitation on his behalf, secretly hiring men from abroad and sending them to Rome disguised as harvesters — for this, they say, was hinted at in riddling terms in her letters to her son. Others say that Cornelia was in fact quite displeased that these things were being done.
On the day, then, on which Opimius and his party intended to repeal the laws, the Capitol had been occupied since dawn by both sides. When the consul had performed sacrifice, one of his attendants, Quintus Antyllius, carrying the entrails to another place, said to Fulvius's followers, "Make way for honest men, you wicked citizens." Some say that as he spoke these words he also bared his arm, gesturing as if in insult, as he pushed past.
At any rate, Antyllius was killed on the spot, stabbed with large writing-styluses, which are said to have been made for this very purpose. The multitude was thrown into confusion at the murder, but the two leaders were affected in opposite ways: Gaius was distressed and rebuked his followers, telling them they had at last given his enemies, who had long wanted one, a pretext against themselves; but Opimius, taking it as if it were the opening he needed, was elated, and incited the people to take vengeance.
For the time being they dispersed, since a rainstorm came on; but at daybreak the consul convened the Senate and was transacting business inside, while others laid out Antyllius's body, stripped bare, on a bier and deliberately carried it through the Forum past the senate-house, with wailing and lamentation — Opimius knowing well what was being done, but pretending to be surprised, so that the senators too came out to see.
When the couch had been set down in the middle, some cried out as though at a terrible and monstrous misfortune, but the majority found themselves hating and reviling the oligarchic party, saying that they themselves had murdered Tiberius Gracchus on the Capitoline while he was tribune, and had cast out his body besides, while this attendant Antyllius, though perhaps he had not deserved his fate,
had nevertheless furnished the greatest cause of his own suffering, now lay exposed in the forum, and the Roman senate stood around him lamenting and joining in his funeral procession-a hired man-so as to make away with the one man still left who cared for the people. After this they went back again into the senate-house and voted, and ordered the consul Opimius to save the city however he could, and to put down the tyrants.
When Opimius had proclaimed beforehand that the senators should go under arms, and had given orders to each of the knights to bring two armed household slaves at dawn, Fulvius on his side made counter-preparations and gathered a crowd, while Gaius, coming away from the forum, stopped by his father's statue, and after gazing at it a long time in silence, burst into tears and groans, and went away.
This moved many of those who saw it to pity Gaius, and reproaching themselves for abandoning and betraying the man, they came to his house and kept watch all night at his doors-not at all like those who were guarding Fulvius. For that crowd spent the night in applause and shouting, drinking and growing bold, with Fulvius himself the first to get drunk and to say and do much that was crude and unbefitting his years,
whereas the men around Gaius, as though in the face of a common disaster to their country, kept quiet, watching what was to come, taking their turns on guard and resting.
At daybreak they roused Fulvius, still heavy with sleep from his drinking, and armed themselves with the spoils about his house, which he had taken when he triumphed over the Gauls as consul, and with much threatening and shouting set out to seize the Aventine hill. Gaius refused to arm himself, but went forth as though to the forum, in his toga, with only a small dagger girded on,
and as he was going out, at the doorway his wife fell before him and, throwing her arms about him with one hand and about their child with the other, said, "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; no, you are throwing yourself before the murderers of Tiberius, unarmed-nobly enough, so that you may suffer rather than do harm-but to no advantage at all for the commonwealth will you perish.
Already the worse cause has prevailed: by force and by the sword they exact their justice now. If your brother had fallen at Numantia, his body would have been given back to us under truce; but now perhaps I too shall be a suppliant to some river or sea, to beg that your body be shown to me at last, wherever it lies guarded. For what trust is left any longer in laws, or in gods, after the murder of Tiberius?"
While Licinnia was lamenting in this fashion, Gaius gently loosened her embrace and went off in silence with his friends; she, trying to catch hold of his cloak, collapsed onto the pavement and remained there mute for a great while, until, having fainted, she was raised up by the servants and borne to her brother Crassus.
When they had all assembled together, Fulvius, persuaded by Gaius, sent his younger son with a herald's staff to the forum. The young man was very handsome to look at; and standing there then, composed and full of modesty, in tears, he made proposals of reconciliation to the consul and the senate.
Now most of those present were not at all averse to a settlement; but Opimius said that they ought not to persuade the senate by messengers, but that the men should come down as citizens answerable to the law, submit to trial, and only in that way beg off its anger; and he charged the young man to say that on these terms he should either come down again or not come down at all.
Gaius, then, as they say, was willing to go and try to persuade the senate; but since none of the others would allow it, Fulvius again sent his son to speak on their behalf, to the same effect as before. But Opimius, eager to bring on a battle, at once seized the young man and handed him over to be held in custody, and set upon the followers of Fulvius with a large body of hoplites and Cretan archers,
who, above all by shooting and wounding them, threw them into confusion. When the rout occurred, Fulvius took refuge in a disused bath-house and, a little later, was found and cut down together with his elder son; Gaius was seen by no one fighting, but, sickened by what was happening, withdrew to the temple of Artemis; there, wishing to kill himself, he was prevented by his most faithful companions, Pomponius and Licinius: for these men, being present, took the sword away from him and urged him to flee once more,
where indeed it is said that, sinking to his knee and raising his hands to the goddess, he prayed that the Roman people, in return for that ingratitude and betrayal, might never cease to be enslaved; for most of them plainly changed sides once amnesty was proclaimed.
As Gaius fled, then, with his enemies pressing on and overtaking him near the wooden bridge, his two friends, bidding him go on ahead, themselves stood their ground against the pursuers and, fighting before the bridge, let no one pass until they were killed,
while with Gaius fled a single servant named Philocrates. Everyone, as if at a race, was urging him on, but no one came to his aid, nor was anyone willing to give him a horse even though he asked for one; for the pursuers were pressing close behind. He got just ahead of them by taking refuge in a sacred grove of the Furies, and there he perished, Philocrates first killing him and then slaying himself.
But as some say, both were taken alive by their enemies, and because the servant had thrown his arms about his master, no one was able to strike the one before the other had been beaten down and killed by many blows. They say that someone else cut off Gaius' head and was carrying it, when a friend of Opimius named Septumuleius took it from him; for a reward of gold equal to its weight had been proclaimed at the start of the battle for anyone who brought in the head of Gaius or of Fulvius,
and it was brought by Septumuleius, spitted on a spear, to Opimius, and when it was placed on a scale it weighed seventeen and two-thirds pounds, Septumuleius having proved himself vile in this matter too and played a foul trick-for he had taken out the brain and poured in molten lead. Those who brought Fulvius' head-for they were men of no distinction-received nothing.
The bodies of these men and of the others were thrown into the river, three thousand having been killed; and their properties were sold to the public treasury. They forbade the women to mourn, and they even stripped Licinnia, the wife of Gaius, of her dowry. Most cruel of all was what they did to Fulvius' younger son, who had neither raised a hand against them nor been among the combatants, but had come under truce before the battle began-they seized him then, and after the battle put him to death.
Yet what grieved the people more than this and than all the rest was the temple of Concord that Opimius built: for he seemed to be exalting himself and taking great pride, and in a way celebrating a triumph, over the slaughter of so many citizens; and so, one night, someone wrote beneath the temple's inscription this line: "A work of madness builds a temple of Concord."
This man, moreover, the first to make use of a dictator's power while holding the consulship, and to put to death, without trial, along with more than three thousand citizens, Gaius Gracchus and Fulvius Flaccus-of whom the one had been consul and had celebrated a triumph, the other had held first place among men of his own age in excellence and reputation-did not even refrain from theft, but, sent as an ambassador to Jugurtha the Numidian, was corrupted by his money; and having been convicted on the most shameful charge of bribery, grew old in disgrace, hated and abused by the people,
who, at the very time these things were done, had been humbled and cowed, but a little later showed how great a longing and yearning they had for the Gracchi. For they had their images made and set up in public view, and consecrated the places where they had been slain, and brought there the first-fruits of all that the seasons bring; and many sacrificed there daily and fell down before them, as though visiting the shrines of gods.
And indeed Cornelia too is said to have borne the rest of her misfortune nobly and greatly, and to have said of the sacred places in which they had been killed that the dead had tombs worthy of them; and she herself spent her time in the region called Misenum,
changing nothing of her accustomed way of life. She had many friends, and, out of hospitality, kept a fine table, always having Greeks and men of letters about her, while all the kings both received gifts from her and sent them to her. She was most delightful to those who visited and spent time with her, recounting the life and habits of her father Africanus; but most admirable of all was her recollection of her sons, without grief and without tears, as she related their sufferings and their deeds to those who asked, as though speaking of men of old.
For this reason it seemed to some that she had become senseless through old age or the greatness of her misfortunes, and insensible to her calamities-they themselves being truly insensible to how great a benefit good natural gifts, and a good birth and upbringing, are to human beings toward freedom from grief, and to the fact that fortune, even when virtue is on guard against it, often prevails over evils, but it cannot take away the capacity to bear a misfortune with good reason when one stumbles.