Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus (; 163 – 133 BC) was a Roman politician best known for his agrarian reform law entailing the transfer of land from the Roman state and wealthy landowners to poorer citizens. He had also served in the Roman army, fighting in Africa during the Third Punic War and in Spain during the Numantine War.
His political future was imperilled during his quaestorship when he was forced to negotiate a humiliating treaty with the Numantines after they had surrounded the army he was part of in Spain. Seeking to rebuild that future and reacting to a supposed decline in the Roman population which he blamed on rich families buying up Italian land, he carried a land reform bill against strong opposition by another tribune during his term as tribune of the plebs in 133 BC. To pass and protect his reforms, Tiberius unprecedentedly had the tribune who opposed his programme deposed from office, usurped the senate's prerogatives over foreign policy, and attempted to stand for a consecutive tribunate. Fears of Tiberius' popularity and his willingness to break political norms led to his death, along with many supporters, in a riot instigated by his enemies.
His land reforms survived his death; family allies, including his younger brother Gaius, took places on the land commission set up by the law and distributed over of land over the next few years. A decade later, Gaius too was plebeian tribune and proposed in his year much more wide-ranging reforms that also led to his death. Tiberius and his brother Gaius are known collectively as the Gracchi brothers. The date of Tiberius' death marks the traditional start of the Roman Republic's decline and eventual collapse.
Early life
Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus was born in 163 or 162 BC. He was, from birth, a member of the Roman Republic's aristocracy.
His father, also named Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, was part of one of Rome's leading families. Tiberius' father served as consul for 177 and 163 BC, and was elected censor in 169. He also had celebrated two triumphs during the 170s, one for the victorious establishment of a twenty-year-long peace in Spain.
Tiberius' mother, Cornelia, was the daughter of the renowned general Scipio Africanus. His sister Sempronia was the wife of Scipio Aemilianus, another important general and politician. Tiberius was brought up by his mother, who dedicated herself after the elder Tiberius' death to her children's education. Prior to his military career, Tiberius was co-opted into the College of Augurs.
Military career
Tiberius began his military career in 147 BC, serving as a legate or military tribune under his brother-in-law, Scipio Aemilianus during his campaign to take Carthage during the Third Punic War. According to Plutarch, Tiberius – along with Gaius Fannius – was among the first to scale Carthage's walls. He served through to the next year.
In 137 BC he was quaestorExtraurban quaestors acted as consular lieutenants, supervising campaign funds while supporting provincial administration and taking command if a commander died. to consul Gaius Hostilius Mancinus and served his term in Hispania Citerior (nearer Spain) during the Numantine War. The campaign was unsuccessful; Mancinus and his army lost several skirmishes outside the city before a confused retreat in the night led to the army being surrounded. Mancinus then sent Tiberius to negotiate a treaty of surrender.
The Numantines had previously signed a treaty with Rome a few years earlier under Quintus Pompeius, but Rome had reneged on its terms; the senate refused to ratify the treaty on the grounds that its terms were too favourable to the Numantines. Tiberius' negotiations were successful in part because of the influence with the Numantines he inherited from his father's praetorship in the area in 179–78 BC.; During the negotiations, Tiberius requested the return of his quaestorian account books which were taken when the Numantines had captured the Roman camp; the Numantines acquiesced.
The new treaty brought back in defeat was also rejected: the Romans rejected the terms as humiliating, revoked Mancinus' citizenship, and sent him stripped and bound to the Numantines. However, by the time the terms of this agreement were being debated in the senate, Numantine ambassadors had also arrived and Mancinus likely argued in favour of his own ritual surrender, felt confident in his safety, and wanted to look towards making a soft landing for his career. Tiberius offered no forceful support for the treaty and seems to have distanced himself from it; it was proposed to send Tiberius in chains along with Mancinus, but that proposal was defeated.
Tribunate
Tiberius was elected as plebeian tribune for 133 BC. While Livy's depiction of the middle republic as domestically placid is exaggerated, Roman political culture at the time generally resolved disputes through negotiation, peer pressure, and deference to established norms. Economic and demographic pressures among poorer Romans created substantial demand for redistribution of underexploited state land (ager publicus). Traditional accounts claimed that much of this land had been occupied by wealthy landowners operating large worked by slaves, which displaced poorer farmers.
Tiberius believed that a previous law had limited the amount of public land that any person could hold to approximately 120 hectares, which was largely ignored. Tiberius proposed the Lex Sempronia agraria to enforce this limit; surplus land would then be transferred into the hands of poor Roman citizens. This would benefit the poor, slow the rate of urbanisation and increase the amount of men with the necessary land to meet the army property qualifications.
The reforms gained strong support from the rural plebs, many of whom came to Rome to support Tiberius. Although there was strong opposition from many in the elite who held large amounts of public land, he did receive backing from other members of the elite, including the consul Publius Mucius Scaevola, his father-in-law Appius Claudius Pulcher, and Publius Licinius Crassus Dives Mucianus, along with several younger senators.
The bill was proposed before the concilium plebis; Tiberius forwent the approval of the senate before a bill was to be introduced. In response, the senate persuaded his fellow tribune Marcus Octavius, who may have previously been one of Tiberius' friends,Sources differ as to whether Octavius was one of Tiberius' friends; Plutarch delivers a dramatic scene of emotional entreaties while Dio attributes Octavius' opposition to a family feud. and Dio, 24.83.4. to obstruct the proceedings through his veto. This led to the physical removal, and effective but unconstitutional removal, of Octavius as tribune.
Moreover, victory would win him considerable support among the people and buttressed his prospects for higher office. His refusals to compromise or withdraw his proposals led to suspicion among the elite that the bill was for his personal and familial political interests instead of his stated objectives. Indeed, the stubbornness with which he sought his objectives may have come from a personal need to secure his political future securing a big political success during his tribunician year. Moreover, Tiberius and his ally and father-in-law Appius Claudius Pulcher may have also calculated that land distributions would co-opt the loyalties of the soon-to-return Numantine war veterans. Passage would have served to balance against Aemilianus' political influence – he was the commander in the final campaign of the Numantine war – after his expected victory.
After passage of the bill, the senate allocated very little money for the commissioners, making it impossible for the commission to do its job when it needed to pay for surveyors, pack animals, and other expenses. After this meagre allotment, however, news arrived that Attalus III of Pergamum had died and that he had bequeathed his treasury and devised his kingdom to Rome. Tiberius proposed using the bequest to finance the land commission, which triggered a wave of opposition. The ancient sources disagree on what the bequest would be used for: Plutarch asserts it was to be used to buy tools for the farmers, Livy's epitome asserts it was to be used to purchase more land for redistribution in response to an apparent shortage. The latter is unlikely, as the process of surveying and distribution were incipient; it is also possible the money was to be used to finance the commission itself. Tiberius' proposal usurped senatorial prerogatives over finance and foreign policy, breaking a major political norm. The proposal to take the Attalid legacy led to Tiberius coming under attack in the senate by Quintus Pompeius and being accused of harbouring regal ambitions. One of the former consuls also brought a lawsuit against Tiberius arguing the deposition of Octavius violated magisterial collegiality and was a dangerous precedent which a sufficiently powerful tribune could exploit to bypass all checks on his power.
Attempted re-election and death He tried to stand for re-election as tribune, claiming that he needed to do so to prevent repeal of the agrarian law or possibly to escape prosecution for his deposition of Octavius. Attempts at such consecutive terms may have been illegal. The bid, however, certainly violated Roman constitutional norms: magistrates were immune while in office and continuous officeholding implied continual immunity. Some ancient historians also report that Tiberius, to smooth his bid for re-election, brought laws to create mixed juries of senators and but this likely emerges from confusion with his brother's law to that effect. The deadly opposition to Tiberius Gracchus' reforms focused more on his subsequent actions – interpreted by his contemporaries as indicative of a desire to essentially overthrow the republic and institute a popular tyranny – than on the reforms themselves.
At the electoral comitia for the plebeian tribunate of 132 BC, Tiberius and his entourage seized the Capitoline hill where the voting was taking place to dictate the result. At a senate meeting on the tribunician elections, Tiberius' first cousin Publius Cornelius Scipio Nasica Serapio, the pontifex maximus, attempted to induce consul Publius Mucius Scaevola use force and stop Tiberius' re-election. When Scaevola refused, Scipio Nasica shouted a formula for levying soldiers in an emergency – "anyone who wants the community secure, follow me" ()Val. Max., 3.2.17. – and led a mob to the with his toga drawn over his head. In doing so, he attempted to frame the killing as a religious rite () taken to free the state from an incipient tyrant. Tiberius and supporters did not fight back; killed with stones, wooden chairs and other blunt weapons, their bodies were thrown into the Tiber.
Aftermath of Tiberius' death
Tiberius' agrarian law was not repealed. His position on the agrarian commission was filled; the commission's business continued over the next few years: its progress can be observed in recovered boundary stones stating the commissioners' names. Most of those boundary stones bear the names of Gaius Gracchus, Appius Claudius Pulcher, and Publius Licinius Crassus. An increase in the register of citizens in the next decade suggests a large number of land allotments. But that registration could also be related to greater willingness to register: registration brought the chance of getting land from the commission. It also could have been related to lowering of the property qualifications for census registration into the fifth class from four thousand to 1.5 thousand asses.