The Gracchi Brothers (Classics)

Introduction
The brothers Tiberius (163–133 BCE) and Gaius (153–121 BCE) Sempronius Gracchus left a great mark on the history of the Roman Republic. Tiberius, tribune of the plebs in 133, is known especially for agrarian reform; he passed a law that intended to distribute ager publicus (land owned by the Roman state) to the landless poor. Thus he intended to call a halt to a perceived decline of population and concomitant lack of soldiers for the army. His law caused much resistance from the senatorial elite, who held much of this land themselves and feared that Tiberius would gain too much personal power through his popularity with the plebs. Tiberius’s unusual political methods, especially his deposition of a fellow tribune and his attempt to be re-elected as tribune, led to his murder by a group of senators, led by the pontifex maximus Publius Cornelius Scipio Nasica. Gaius Gracchus, as tribune of the plebs in 123, put forward a wider program of legislation, including a law to establish colonies overseas, a law against extortion by Roman magistrates in the provinces, a law to distribute subsidized grain to the people of Rome, and many others. He was re-elected as tribune, but his popularity caused resistance among the Senate. During a meeting to pass further legislation, the Senate issued the senatus consultum ultimum, authorizing the consul L. Opimius to take action against Gaius. He was killed with 3,000 of his supporters. Despite their violent deaths, many of the laws issued by the Gracchi remained in force. Gaius’s laws especially were extremely well drafted and remained the standard for many decades. The events surrounding the Gracchi were seen by many contemporary and later writers as the beginning of the end for the Roman Republic, since they illustrated the power that a determined tribune of the plebs could bring to bear against the Senate. Tiberius’s death was also the first, but sadly not the last time that violence was used in the politics of the Republic. Understanding the Gracchi is a very difficult problem, since there is no contemporary source material on the two brothers; all surviving sources date from at least several decades after the events. It is very likely that works by Gaius Gracchus were the source for much of the surviving works on Tiberius, so that it is very difficult to attain an unbiased picture of Tiberius’s actions. Furthermore, the events of the Gracchan period, and the rhetoric surrounding them, influenced the historiography of the earlier Republic. Thus, Livy’s narrative of the agrarian debates of the early Republic is clearly influenced by Gracchan rhetoric. Since many sources have been lost, especially the works of Gaius himself, it is impossible to trace the exact relationships between all these events and the interconnections between the sources. Therefore, understanding the exact events during the Gracchan period, as well as the intentions, achievements, and legacy of both brothers are among the most difficult problems facing historians of the Republic. Nevertheless, since the impact of the Gracchi was enormous, because of the laws they passed, and because of the effects of the period on the political process of the Republic, it is essential that scholars continue to engage directly with the Gracchi brothers.

General Overviews
There are several general overviews of the activities of the Gracchi and their effects on Roman politics, society, and economy. Unfortunately, there is no recent monograph on the activities of both brothers. The best introductions in English are still Boren 1968 and Stockton 1979, although both are now out of date, especially on the economic and demographic problems that the Gracchi tried to solve. Perelli 1993 is slightly more recent but does not incorporate the most recent academic insights, and unfortunately, is not available in English. The French and Italian works Clavel-Lévêque 1983, Gabba 1990, and Nicolet 1967 are useful introductions for readers in these languages, but all are out of date. Fraccaro 1967 and Carcopino 1967 are based on older editions; they are still cited and offer many valuable insights, but they cannot make up for the lack of recent scholarly overviews on the Gracchi brothers. It should be emphasized that Tiberius and Gaius do not have to be discussed together at all, and it cannot be assumed that both brothers pursued the same goals, as is already clear from the fact that Gaius proposed a far wider program of legislation than Tiberius. Nor did they use the exact same methods. Of course, much of the source material on Tiberius eventually derives from the works of Gaius, but this does not mean that they wanted to achieve the same objectives; they should therefore not automatically be discussed together (see Tiberius Gracchus and Gaius Gracchus for works on the individual men).

Boren, Henry C. 1968. The Gracchi. New York: Twayne.

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This work investigates the causes of the social and economic problems that the Gracchi tried to solve, and the technical and legal details of Tiberius Gracchus’s agrarian law (of course, the conclusions are by now rather out of date). Boren emphasizes that Gaius Gracchus sought support from a much wider range of groups in society than Tiberius did, and gives a good overview of his social program and its aftermath.

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Carcopino, Jerôme. 1967. Autour des Gracques. Paris: Les Belles Lettres.

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Carcopino investigates various topics connected the Gracchi: the value of Appian as a source for the lives of the Gracchi, which he rates highly; the family background of the Gracchi; and Scipio Aemilianus’s influence on agrarian reform. The largest part of the work is taken up by a discussion of the triumviri of the agrarian commission. An appendix updates the argument from the earlier edition. The 1st edition was published in 1928.

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Clavel-Lévêque, Monique. 1983. La società italica dopo la terza guerra punica. I Gracchi. In Storia della società italiana 2. La tarda Repubblica e il principato. Milan: Teti Editore.

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Clavel investigates how the growth of the Roman state, through conquest, led to a social crisis; her discussion repeats the traditional picture of the abandonment of the occupation of land by the rich. She then investigates Tiberius’s activities, their importance for the process of government of the Republic, and their success in restoring small farmers. She finishes by discussing the main elements of Gaius Gracchus’s legislation.

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Fraccaro, Plinio. 1967. Studi sull’età dei Gracchi. Rome: L’Erma di Bretschneider.

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Despite the title, the work focuses especially on the Gracchan agrarian legislation. Fraccaro discusses such varied topics as the sources of Appian’s and Plutarch’s works, the availability of ager publicus for Gracchan distribution, and the technical and legal details of Tiberius Gracchus’s legislation. This work still offers many useful insights into the Gracchan period, even though the first edition was published a century ago. The 1st edition was published in 1914.

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Gabba, Emilio. 1990. Il tentativo dei Gracchi. In Storia di Roma. Vol. 2. Edited by Arnaldo Momigliano and Aldo Schiavone, 671–689. Turin: Einaudi.

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Gabba gives an overview of the activities of the Gracchi and the socio-economic developments that led up to them, mostly adhering to the traditional picture of agrarian decline. He also describes the technical details of the land distributions and gives a short overview of the laws of Gaius Gracchus. Overall this a useful short introduction into the Gracchan period.

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Katz, Solomon. 1942. The Gracchi: An essay in interpretation. Classical Journal 38:65–82.

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Katz offers a general overview of the Gracchan period and the motivations that may have inspired Tiberius Gracchus, including Greek philosophy, the general decline in Italian agriculture, the increase in slave labor, and the problems of recruitment for the army. Gaius’s motives are more difficult to establish, but Katz sensibly concludes that both brothers were conservative in their outlook and wanted to work within the framework of the state.

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Nicolet, Claude. 1967. Les Gracques ou crise agraire et révolution à Rome. Paris: Julliard.

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This book starts out with a general discussion of the causes of the economic and social problems of the 2nd century BCE, mostly adhering to the traditional picture of decline in Italian agriculture. Nicolet then describes the agrarian law of Tiberius Gracchus in detail, as well as Gaius Gracchus’s legislation, without adding much to already existing interpretations. Nevertheless, it is a useful introduction for French speakers.

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Perelli, Luciano. 1993. I Gracchi. Rome: Salerno.

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This is the most recent study of the Gracchan period, written for the general public. It presents a nuanced picture of economic developments in the 2nd century BCE, acknowledging recent archaeological research, and discusses the details of the Gracchan legislation. It is sufficiently critical of the written sources, especially Appian, and overall is a good general introduction.

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Stockton, David L. 1979. The Gracchi. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.

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This is still the basic introduction to the Gracchi in English. Obviously it does not incorporate the most recent insights on the Gracchi and the economic problems of Italy, but it clearly illustrates the problems surrounding the interpretation of the period. Stockton gives an intelligent analysis of the technical issues of the Gracchan land reform and thoroughly analyzes the consequences of the Gracchan reform for the Republic in general.

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Von Ungern-Sternberg, Jürgen. 2006. Römische Studien. Geschichtsbewußtsein–Zeitalter der Gracchen. Krise der Republik. Munich and Leipzig: Saur.

DOI: 10.1515/9783110938715Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »

This volume collects several previously published works by Von Ungern-Sternberg. Some deal directly with the Gracchi, such as a useful paper on the socio-economic problems of the Republic and one on the agrarian program of Tiberius; others are reviews of works about the Gracchi, such as those of Stockton and Shochat. Some articles are only loosely related to the Gracchi, e.g., about leges frumentariae in the Republic.

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Bibliographies
Two bibliographies of the Gracchi exist, but both cover only a limited period of time. Badian 1962 lists works that appeared from 1940 to 1959, while Santangelo 2007 covers the period 1985 to 2005.

Badian, Ernst. 1962. From the Gracchi to Sulla. Historia 11:197–245.

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Badian provides a useful list of all articles and most books that appeared in the period 1940–1959, dealing with the period from the Gracchi until Sulla, with very short summaries of their contents. Badian summarizes some of the main academic debates that occurred in this period, e.g., the question of whether Tiberius Gracchus gave land to Italians and the chronology of events during his tribunate.

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Santangelo, Federico. 2007. A survey of recent scholarship on the age of the Gracchi (1985–2005). Topoi 15:465–510.

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This article is extremely useful for gathering references not only to the Gracchi specifically, but also to the developments that led up to their attempt at reform, e.g., the economic and demographic developments of the 2nd century BCE, and the political events of the period. Santangelo also usefully summarizes the main debates that have taken place between 1985 and 2005.

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Stockton, David L. 1981. From the Gracchi to Sulla: Sources for Roman history, 133–80 B.C. London: LACTOR.

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Not a bibliography as such, but a selection of sources regarding the period 133–80 BCE. Gives translations of the most relevant sources for the Gracchan period; especially useful for schools and university courses focusing on the Gracchi.

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Sources
The main sources on the Gracchi are the first book of Appian’s Civil Wars and Plutarch’s Lives of Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus. Both were written much later than the Gracchan period and are therefore unreliable in many ways. The source materials used by Appian and Plutarch have been the subject of much debate; it is generally agreed that Appian used a source close to the Gracchi, possibly Gaius Gracchus himself, while Plutarch used both a friendly source as well as a text that was more negative on the Gracchi, perhaps Posidonius or Livy. Most of the basic research on this, such as Fortlage 1971–1972, Gabba 1956, and Riecken 1911, is fairly old, but still of value. Almost immediately after Tiberius’s death, his life story became distorted by people using his memory for their own purpose (see Reception of the Gracchi), as Rieger 1991 shows Sordi 1978 argues that Gaius Gracchus consciously created a picture of his family (including Cornelia, see Cornelia, Mother of the Gracchi) as pious and dedicated to traditional Roman values. Furthermore, the historiography of the Gracchan period also had an impact on the narrative of the early Republic, both with regard to the debate around land distribution and to debates concerning the political process of the Republic. Gutberlet 1985 presents a good overview of the connection between the Gracchi and the works of Livy; for a case study on ambitus and its representation, see McDonnell 1986. Lintott 1970 is a good study of the impact of the Gracchi on the use of violence in the political process, pointing out continuity between the pre- and post-Gracchan period.

Fortlage, J. H. 1971–1972. Die Quelle zu Appians Darstellung der politischen Ziele des Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus. Helikon 11/12:166–191.

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Fortlage argues that Appian based his text, which is very positive about the Gracchi, directly on Gaius Gracchus’s own works. Conversely, he thinks that Plutarch, who is more negative about the Gracchi than Appian, combined various works, both by Gaius Gracchus and by his opponents.

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Gabba, Emilio. 1956. Appiano e la storia delle guerre civile. Firenze: La nuova Italia.

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This is still an essential work on the structure of Appian’s civil wars and its function within Roman history as a whole. The prefaces of both works function as a “political program” that Appian follows throughout: he admires monarchy, since it put an end to factional strife of the late Republic. According to Gabba, Appian’s use of sources shows that he followed them closely, but still adapted them in order to demonstrate his own views.

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Gutberlet, Dagmar. 1985. Die erste Dekade des Livius als Quelle zur gracchischen und sullanischen Zeit. Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlag.

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Gutberlet argues that the events described in the first decade of Livy’s work were heavily influenced by the Gracchan and Sullan period. Ager publicus was not yet controversial in the early Republic, as Livy suggests, but only from the 2nd century BCE onwards. Sources connected to the Gracchi and Sulla tried to legitimize their attempts at land distribution by claiming that the people had been fighting for land already in the early Republic.

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Lintott, Andrew W. 1970. The tradition of violence in the annals of the early Roman Republic. Historia 19:12–29.

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The ancient sources suggest that the death of Tiberius Gracchus was the first time that violence was used in Roman politics. However, Lintott argues that a tradition of violence in politics already existed in Roman literature before the Gracchan period, connected to Maelius. The Gracchi only reinforced this tradition, so that by Cicero’s time it was fully acceptable to use violence to reach certain political aims.

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McDonnell, Myles. 1986. Ambitus and Plautus’ Amphitruo 65–81. American Journal of Philology 107:564–576.

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McDonnell investigates a passage in the Amphitruo that is concerned with the theme of ambitus, bribery at elections. This was connected to ambitio, the attempt by politicians to gain power with the people, e.g., through proposing land reform. McDonnell illustrates how stories about politicians who attempted this in the early Republic were influenced by anti-Gracchan rhetoric, with which Livy likely agreed in his lost discussion of the Gracchan period.

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Riecken, Georg. 1911. Die Quellen zur Geschichte des Tiberius Gracchus. Borna and Leipzig: R. Noske.

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Despite its age, this work still provides worthwhile insights into the problem of the sources used by Appian and Plutarch, especially regarding the question of whether the law limiting the possession of ager publicus was the lex Licinia or another law (see Land Reform). The differences between Plutarch and Appian on this issue were perhaps caused by Plutarch’s reliance on Livy and a pro-Gracchan author, while Appian only used a pro-Gracchan text.

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Rieger, Hermann. 1991. Das Nachleben des Tiberius Gracchus in der lateinischen Literatur. Bonn: Habelt.

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After a discussion about the curriculum in Roman education, Rieger examines how various events during the life of Tiberius Gracchus, his parents, and Scipio Aemilianus were discussed in later Latin literature, and identifies and explains differences between the sources. Finally, he examines sources about Tiberius’s capacity as an orator. In an appendix, he very usefully gives the Latin text of all sources mentioning Tiberius and/or Gaius Gracchus.

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Sordi, Marta. 1978. La tradizione storiografica su Tiberio Sempronio Gracco e la propaganda contemporanea. Miscellanea greca e romana 6:299–330.

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In this very interesting article, Sordi argues that Gaius Gracchus’s propaganda created an image of a pious family because he wanted to claim religious legitimacy for his own and his brother’s acts. Against this, his opponents argued that he was killed by the pontifex maximus, and therefore did not enjoy religious legitimacy; furthermore, he had been influenced by Greek philosophers, bringing foreign influences into Roman religion.

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The Narrative Structure of Appian and Plutarch
The source problem is compounded by the fact that both Appian and Plutarch had their own literary goals when writing their works. Appian, in particular, had a very ingenuous structure, as Gargola 1997 and Gargola 2008 clearly demonstrate. Appian and Plutarch each had specific ideas on politics and of what made a good politician, using the Gracchi as examples; Appian was an admirer of Roman monarchy and therefore presented the chaos of the Gracchan period negatively, as Bucher 2000 exposes most convincingly. Plutarch propagated a philosophical program based on self-restraint, which the Gracchi unfortunately did not possess in sufficient amount, despite their noble intentions. Ingenkamp 1991 proffers a good overview of Plutarch’s intentions in writing the Lives of the Gracchi; see most recently also Roskam 2011.

Bucher, Gregory S. 2000. The origins, program, and composition of Appian’s Roman history. Transactions of the American Philological Association 130:411–458.

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Bucher investigates how Appian composed his work and establishes a chronology for when the various parts of the work were written. He then examines Appian’s political views, arguing that he admired the benefits that Roman rule had brought to the world, although not all individual leaders are presented positively. Finally, Bucher contrasts Appian’s views with those of his contemporaries, who often had very different opinions on Rome’s empire.

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Gargola, Daniel J. 1997. Appian and the aftermath of the Gracchan reform. Transactions of the American Philological Association 118:555–581.

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Gargola investigates Appian’s aims in writing the Civil Wars and especially the role of the three post-Gracchan laws he mentions. In looking at this question from a literary perspective, Gargola makes a valuable contribution to this complex debate (see The Agrarian Legislation): Appian’s introduction set up a narrative structure with three laws, which had to be followed in concluding the Gracchan episode in order to create the desired literary effect.

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Gargola, Daniel J. 2008. The Gracchan reform and Appian’s representation of an agrarian crisis. In People, land and politics. Demographic developments and the transformation of Roman Italy, 300 BC–AD 14. Edited by Luuk de Ligt and Simon J. Northwood, 487–518. Leiden, The Netherlands and Boston: Brill.

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In this article Gargola investigates the narrative structure of Appian’s description of the Gracchan period. In order to make his narrative run smoothly, Appian gave the reform one cause and one aim, ignoring many loose ends. Thus he made the Gracchan land law seem the most logical solution to the problems of the 2nd century BCE, and embedded it in traditional Republican discourse.

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Ingenkamp, Heinz Gerd. 1991. Plutarchs “Leben der Gracchen”: Eine analyse. In Aufstieg Und Niedergang Der Romischen Welt. Vol. 2. Edited by H. Temporini and W. Haase, 4298–4336. Berlin: De Gruyter.

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This article gives an overview of the literary structure of Plutarch’s Lives of Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus. Ingenkamp argues that Plutarch’s purpose was moralistic, promoting values such as self-restraint and personal autonomy. The Gracchi, especially Gaius, lacked this quality and destroyed the harmony of the Roman state, leading to a negative judgment on Plutarch’s part; Plutarch’s judgment on Scipio and Cornelia, who did possess these qualities, is positive throughout.

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Roskam, Geert. 2011. Ambition and love of fame in Plutarch’s lives of Agis, Cleomenes, and the Gracchi. Classical Philology 106:208–225.

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Plutarch, in the introduction of the Life of Agis, devotes much attention to the subject of ambition; it can lead to great deeds, but it can also have devastating results. The comparison between the four lives concludes that all four men had excellent intentions; the slaughter occurring during the Gracchan reforms was the fault not only of the Gracchi, but also of other ambitious men.

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Other Writers
Other ancient writers, such as Accius, Posidonius, Varro, and Diodorus Siculus also discussed the Gracchi. Most writers mentioned in this section discuss one particular writer’s statements about the Gracchi, e.g., Biliński 1957 on Accius, Nicolet 1979 on Varro, Marasco 1986 on Posidonius, and Botteri 1992 on Diodorus. However, more research on sources other than Appian and Plutarch is still a desideratum in scholarship.

Biliński, Bronisław. 1957. Accio ed i Gracchi. Contributo alla storia della plebe e della tragedia romana. Rome: Angelo Signorelli.

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Biliński investigates the history of tragedy performance in Rome, the role of tragedy in Roman society in general, and its relationship to the changing role of the plebs in politics specifically. He argues that the Gracchan upheavals found their way into tragedies, especially those of Accius, who firmly supported the power of the nobility against that of the people and attacked radical politicians such as the Gracchi in his works.

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Botteri, Paula. 1992. Les fragments de l’histoire des Gracques dans la Bibliothèque de Diodore de Sicile. Geneva, Switzerland: Centre de recherche d’histoire et de philologie de la IVe Section de l’École pratique des Hautes Études III.

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After a short introduction on the history of the manuscripts of Diodorus’s work, Botteri collects and discusses the sixteen references that have survived from his section on the Gracchi, all from the Excerpta Constantiniana. She gives a short explanation of each passage and evaluates their value as historical sources; she concludes that Diodorus often made use of material not used by other writers.

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Marasco, Gabriele. 1986. Posidonio e i Gracchi. In Studi in onore di Adelmo Barigazzi. Vol. 2. 7–23. Rome: Edizioni dell’Ateneo.

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Marasco argues that the passages about the Gracchi preserved in Diodoros Siculus were derived from the works of Posidonius. He was positive toward the social reforms of the Gracchi, motivated perhaps by Stoicism, but offered negative judgments on Tiberius’s political actions. Posidonius also criticized Gaius’s ambitious politics, but acknowledged that senatorial opposition against the Gracchi should have been accompanied by social reforms as well.

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Nicolet, Claude. 1979. Varron et la politique de Caius Gracchus. Historia 28:276–300.

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Nicolet discusses the fragments of Varro’s work De Vita Populi Romani, especially those that can provide information about the legislation passed by him. Varro’s text, which concerned Gaius Gracchus, was used by Festus, as well as others, so that his references about Gaius Gracchus passed on into other works.

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Liber Coloniarum
An important collection of sources on land distribution in the Roman world are the works of the “Roman land surveyors” or Agrimensores. This is a collection of works from the Imperial period dealing with the surveying and distribution of land. The works contained in this collection are of a technical nature; most likely their main goal was to give practical information about the measurement and administration of land and the legal status of various categories of terrain. One of the works contained in the collection is the so-called Liber Coloniarum or Book of Colonies. This work gives a list of Italian cities and states, among other things, how and by whom the land in each of them was measured. Its limitations are many: the text probably dates from the later 4th century CE, although it was based on a survey made under Augustus and Tiberius, and the entries in the Liber have become corrupted over the centuries. However, the information that the Liber gives on the Gracchan settlements is extremely valuable; in several cases the terms lex Sempronia and limites Graccani appear in connection to certain settlements. What this means has been debated by scholars, but Roselaar 2009 proposes that these notes refer to some kind of Gracchan involvement in the settlements, e.g., the distribution of land to settlers Campbell 2000 is the most recent, excellent edition of all the works of the Agrimensores, including the Liber Coloniarum. A team of French scholars is currently working on the Agrimensores; the French translation and commentary of Brunet 2008 is the most useful outcome of this project with regard to the Liber Coloniarum, as well as the conference proceedings of Gonzalès and Guillaumin 2006.

Brunet, Claude. 2008. Libri coloniarum (Livres des colonies). Besançon: Presses Universitaires de Franche-Comté.

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This edition includes an introduction to the Liber Coloniarum and its significance to surveying, a Latin text with facing French translation, and explanatory notes. Appendices include a list of agrarian laws, their presumed date of passage, and textual sources that mention them; a table of the legal status of various cities; and an essay on the style of the text itself.

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Campbell, Brian. 2000. The writings of the Roman land surveyors. Introduction, text, translation and commentary. London: Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies.

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This excellent edition includes a critical edition, translation, commentary, extensive bibliography of all the works of the Agrimensores, including the Liber Coloniarum. It should be considered the definitive edition for some time to come, replacing earlier editions (especially the 1848–1852 edition of Rudorff, which was the standard edition until Campbell’s work).

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Gonzalès, Antonio, and Jean-Yves Guillaumin, eds. 2006. Autour des Libri coloniarum: Colonisation et colonies dans le monde romain: Actes du colloque international (Besançon, 16–18 octobre 2003). Besançon: Presses Universitaires de Franche-Comté.

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This work contains various conference papers especially on the Liber Coloniarum. Not all papers concern the Gracchan period specifically, but Peyras (pp. 47–63) investigates references to Gracchan activity, which he argues are generally reliable. Especially in the south of Italy, the Gracchan distributions had a large impact on the landscape and the status of the land, of which much was privatized.

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Roselaar, Saskia T. 2009. References to Gracchan activity in the Liber Coloniarum. Historia 58:198–214.

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In this paper, Roselaar investigates the reliability of references to Gracchan activity, e.g., lex Sempronia and limites Graccani. She argues that in most cases some kind of Gracchan involvement in the communities mentioned in the Liber should be assumed, e.g., the distribution of land to settlers and/or the measurement of land in order to clear up confusion about its legal status.

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The Developments of the 2nd Century
The traditional picture of the economic developments that caused the Gracchan crisis suggested that the small farmers were pushed off the (public) land, which was occupied by the rich, who worked it with slaves. This would have made the poor reluctant to have children, leading to a population decline and widespread urban poverty. This image, based especially on the texts of Appian and Plutarch, has long been dominant, especially since it was very well argued by Toynbee 1965. Recent works, however, have demolished this traditional reconstruction, both with regard to the demographic developments of the free Roman citizens and of slaves, and the economic configuration of Italy; slave-staffed estates were certainly not the dominant type of landholding in most parts of the peninsula.

Economy
Most works published in the 1950s to 1990s followed the traditional picture on the economic developments in the 2d century, e.g., Bernstein 1969 on the situation in the countryside; even more recent works such as Levi 1997 do not critically evaluate this reconstruction. The traditional image of economic decline of small farmers was also accepted by most authors writing on the Gracchi in general, (see Nicolet 1967 and Stockton 1979, both cited under General Overviews). It was only in the late 1990s that a more critical approach to this traditional picture appeared. Some scholars questioned the reconstruction of the demographic developments, while others re-investigated the social and economic consequences these demographic trends may have had. The most recent and comprehensive analysis is Roselaar 2010. Boren 1958a and Boren 1958b and Coarelli 1977 discuss the urban side of the economic developments; These two articles provide an ingenious reconstruction of the chronology of labor in public building in the period, leading to urban poverty. Von Ungern-Sternberg 1988 focuses on the position of the rural poor.

Bernstein, Alvin H. 1969. The rural crisis in Italy and the lex Agraria of 133 B. C. PhD diss., Cornell University.

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Although this excellent PhD thesis has never been published, it is fortunately generally available. Bernstein argues that Tiberius Gracchus addressed the concerns of the rural plebs especially, which he believes was declining. Bernstein then gives an analysis of the technical details of the Gracchan agrarian law, and addresses the question whether the Gracchan law could have halted the decline of the small farmer in Italy.

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Boren, Henry C. 1958a. The urban side of the Gracchan economic crisis. American Historical Review 63:890–902.

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This article was the first to investigate the opportunities for free wage labor in the city of Rome in the Gracchan period. Boren argues that a decline in the number of building projects made it more difficult for the urban poor to survive, especially in combination with immigration from the rest of Italy, a lack of income from wars, and a rise in grain prices due to the Sicilian wars.

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Boren, Henry C. 1958b. Numismatic light on the Gracchan crisis. American Journal of Philology 79:140–155.

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Boren examines denarii from hoards found in Italy and Spain dating to 145–110 BCE. He concludes that the unsuccessful wars of the period led to a decline in the weight of individual coins and the total number of coins minted, leading to a decline in public building and a decrease in jobs for the urban proletariat. Many more finds were made after this publication, but its arguments are still worthwhile.

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Coarelli, Filippo. 1977. Public building in Rome between the second Punic war and Sulla. Papers of the British School at Rome. 45:1–23.

DOI: 10.1017/S0068246200009168Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »

Coarelli, like Boren, argues that the lack of building activity in Rome between 138–125 BCE, combined with the lack of colonization schemes in this period, led to difficult living circumstances for the urban poor. Even though such periods without public building programs were normal, in these specific circumstances they were sufficient to lead to a social crisis, which Tiberius Gracchus tried to solve.

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Levi, Mario A. 1997. Aspetti della politica agraria graccana. In La question agraire à Rome: droit romain et société. Perceptions historiques et historiographiques. Edited by Ella Hermon, 31–36. Como: Biblioteca di Athenaeum.

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Levi argues that the economic problems of the 2nd century BCE were partially caused by the fact that agriculture in Italy was not profitable, because products could be imported more cheaply from the provinces as tribute. He argues unconvincingly that land in Italy was mostly used for speculation and pasturing, and that distributions of land to the poor were unrealistic, because small plots would never manage to make a profit.

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Roselaar, Saskia T. 2010. Public land in the Roman Republic: A social and economic history of ager publicus in Italy, 396–89 BC. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.

DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199577231.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »

This work re-evaluates the economic developments in the 2nd century BCE, arguing that the picture of the rich occupying the land was only valid for central Italy, where demand for land was high. Roselaar then examines the legal status of ager publicus and the technical details and effects of the Gracchan land reform. Overall this book gives the most recent analysis of the socio-economic developments of the 2nd century.

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Toynbee, Arnold J. 1965. Hannibal’s legacy: The Hannibalic war’s effects on Roman life. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.

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This standard work introduced the traditional picture of the displacement of small peasants by the rich on public land, leading to population decline. It is well argued and has therefore been very influential, but was written before the recent influx of evidence from survey archaeology. It was therefore based mostly on literary evidence, and is far too negative in its depiction of the decline of the small Roman citizen farmers.

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Von Ungern-Sternberg, Jürgen. 1988. Überlegungen zum Sozialprogramm der Gracchen. In Sozialmassnamen und Fürsorge. Zur Eigenart antiker Sozialpolitik. Edited by H. Kloft, 167–185. Graz and Horn: F. Berger.

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Von Ungern argues that the social problems of small farmers occurred mostly in central Italy, rather than in the whole peninsula, and were caused especially by the occupation of ager publicus by the rich. As Von Ungern explains, it is unclear what Gaius Gracchus’s proposals for social reform entailed, but in any case not all problems could be solved by land distribution, since not enough land was available in Italy.

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Demography
This section cannot be disconnected from the section Economy, since the traditional picture of the 2nd century BCE made a direct connection between population decline and the fate of the small citizen farmer. The traditional demographic theory was not questioned until the 1990s, since it was very well argued, especially by Brunt 1971, and was consistent with the perceived economic developments. The first to question the idea of population decline, Lo Cascio 1994 argues that the free Roman population was in fact growing in the 2nd century BCE. This idea is now generally accepted, but debate remains about the pace of this growth, because the only remaining quantitative data, the Republican census figures, can be interpreted in many different ways. The census figure was at its lowest in 136–135, then rose slightly for 131–130, and suddenly grew by seventy-five thousand in 125–124. This sequence has led to a large variety of ingenious explanations, in Bourne 1951–1952, Rich 1983, and Shochat 1980. As for population developments as a whole, Lo Cascio argues for a so-called “high count,” in which the free population would have grown to about 14 to 19 million in 28 CE, while de Ligt 2004 and de Ligt 2012 argue for a “low count,” which would have seen only a very slow population growth in the 2nd and 1st centuries BCE; Hin 2013 suggests a “middle count.” Rich 1983, with additions in Rich 2007 focuses on the recruitment problem, which was indeed severe, but not because of depopulation, but through under-registration, as the work rightly demonstrates.

Bourne, Frank C. 1951–1952. The Gracchan land law and the census. Classical Weekly 45:180–182.

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Bourne was the first to suggest that only people sui iuris could receive land from the Gracchi, and that therefore people freed their children from patria potestas in order to qualify for land distributions. In his opinion, this may explain the rise in the census figure of 125–124.

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Brunt, Peter A. 1971. Italian manpower 225 B.C.–A.D. 14. Oxford: Clarendon.

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This book has been, for a long time, the standard work on the demography of Republican Italy. Only recently has its general view, of slow population decline, been overtaken by new interpretations. Nevertheless, the wealth of detail and the ingenious argumentation make this essential reading for anyone interested in Italian demography.

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De Ligt, Luuk. 2004. Poverty and demography: The case of the Gracchan land reforms. Mnemosyne 57:725–757.

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An important article in the demographic debate, which introduced a new view into the high count–low count dichotomy. Contrary to Brunt, who argues that the population of Italy declined, and Lo Cascio, who assumes that it grew very fast, de Ligt convincingly argues that the population of Italy rose slowly; since the population was not distributed evenly through the peninsula, this led to socio-economic problems in central Italy.

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De Ligt, Luuk. 2012. Peasants, citizens, and soldiers. Studies in the demographic history of Roman Italy, 225 BC–AD 100. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.

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De Ligt here more fully explores the theories proposed in his work of 2004. He discusses military participation rates, the spread of slavery, the expansion of Italian towns, and emigration from Italy; and he argues that the combined literary, epigraphic, and archaeological evidence suggests that the population of Italy was growing slowly throughout the Republican period.

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Hin, Saskia C. 2013. The demography of Roman Italy. Population dynamics in an ancient conquest society 201 BCE–14 CE. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.

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Hin moves beyond the literary and epigraphic sources on population development by using demographic theory, archaeological surveys, climatic and skeletal evidence, and comparative data in order to investigate demographic trends and the demographic behavior of Roman citizens in the 2nd and 1st centuries BCE. Contrary to De Ligt and Lo Cascio, Hin suggests a middle count scenario of population development in Italy.

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Lo Cascio, Elio. 1994. The size of the Roman population: Beloch and the meaning of the Augustan census figures. Journal of Roman Studies 84:23–40.

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This is an essential article in the debate about population developments. Lo Cascio was the first to argue that the population, instead of declining, was in fact growing at a fast pace, causing widespread competition for land and lack of access to land for small farmers. Although his ideas about the speed of population growth have not found general acceptance, the idea of population increase is now almost universally acknowledged.

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Rich, John W. 1983. The supposed manpower shortage of the later second century BC. Historia 32:287–331.

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A fundamental article about the motivations behind the Gracchan reforms. Rich examines the shortage of recruits in the late 2nd century BCE, which Tiberius intended to solve by distributing land. Rich argues, contrary to many, that the land distributed by the Gracchan commission was counted in the census, so that the recipients became assidui and therefore had to serve in the army.

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Rich, John W. 2007. Tiberius Gracchus, land and manpower. In Crisis and the Roman Empire. Edited by Olivier Hekster, Gerda de Kleijn, and Daniëlle Slootjes, 155–166. Leiden, The Netherlands and Boston: Brill.

DOI: 10.1163/ej.9789004160507.i-448Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »

Rich re-examines some of his 1983 conclusions; he argues that the Gracchi were especially worried about a decline in the population in general, not only in the number of army recruits. This conclusion would make sense given the declining census results, although, Rich argues, these were caused by under-registration rather than actual population decline. The problems of access to land were real, since competition for land increased.

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Shochat, Yanir. 1980. Recruitment and the programme of Tiberius Gracchus. Brussels: Latomus.

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Shochat argues that Tiberius Gracchus did not aim to increase the number of recruits for the army; there was no real shortage of men, and the recruitment problems were caused by the unpopularity of the wars fought in this period, leading to under-registration. He thinks that the rise in the census figures of 125–124 should be explained by a lowering of the census qualification.

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Cornelia, Mother of the Gracchi
The figure of Cornelia, granddaughter of Scipio Africanus and mother of the Gracchi, has loomed large in the historiography of the brothers. The ancient sources state that Cornelia was closely involved in the education of her sons, and they present her as a model for the well-educated Roman matrona, focusing her talents on promoting the political positions of her sons and suffering their deaths with great dignity. Hemelrijk 1999, like many scholarly works on the status of women in the Roman period, discusses Cornelia. The only monograph dedicated solely to her is the excellent Dixon 2007; with Petrocelli 1994 a good overview in Italian. Several articles also focus on aspects of Cornelia’s life: Barnard 1990 discusses her relationship with other women in her family, while Burckhardt and Von Ungern-Sternberg 1994 discusses the way in which Gaius Gracchus influenced his mother’s Nachleben. Cornelia is also credited with writing letters to her son Gaius, serving as a model for female authorship, according to Hallett 2002, and a way for women to influence the men of their families, as demonstrated in Brodersen 2000 and Hallett 2004. However, Horsfall 1987 debates the authenticity of these works.

Barnard, Sylvia. 1990. Cornelia and the women of her family. Latomus 49:383–392.

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Barnard discusses the women of the Cornelii, starting with the mother of Scipio Africanus. She notes the importance of women for dynastic alliances through marriage and divorce, and their importance as bearers of legitimate children. Most of the women of the gens Cornelia were given stereotypical characteristics by the sources, with Cornelia herself coming closest to having a genuine personality.

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Brodersen, Kai. 2000. Tiberius und Gaius Sempronius Gracchus–und Cornelia: Die res publica zwischen Aristokratie, Demokratie und Tyrannis. In Von Romulus zu Augustus. Grosse Gestalten der römischen Republik. Edited by Karl-Joachim Hölkeskamp and Elke Stein-Hölkeskamp, 172–186. Munich: C. H. Beck.

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Brodersen describes the actions of Tiberius and Gaius, which started the Roman revolution. Cornelia in her letters had urged Gaius not to destroy the Republic, and in fact, the brothers did not intend to do so; but, Brodersen argues, their actions started a chain of events that in the end led to the fall of the Republic.

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Burckhardt, Leonhard A., and Jürgen von Ungern-Sternberg. 1994. Cornelia, Mutter der Gracchen. In Reine Männersache? Frauen in Männerdomänen der antiken Welt. Edited by Maria H. Dettenhofer, 97–132. Cologne: Böhlau.

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The authors argue that Cornelia’s later reputation was influenced by Gaius Gracchus’s propaganda. She was remembered especially as an extraordinary mother, while her political involvement was forgotten. They suggest that the populares erected her statue, in order to remind the public of the Gracchi without attracting too much opposition; the emphasis on her role as a mother enabled Augustus to associate her with his program of moral reform. (Also published in Jürgen von Ungern-Sternberg, 2006. Römische Studien. Geschichtsbewußtsein–Zeitalter der Gracchen. Krise der Republik, 218–244. Munich: Saur 2006.)

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Dixon, Suzanne. 2007. Cornelia: Mother of the Gracchi. London and New York: Routledge.

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Dixon gives a comprehensive overview of Cornelia’s life, including her family background, her role in the education and political views of her sons, and her role as an icon of female virtue in later history, not just in Antiquity but also in the early modern period and today. The author discusses the sources on Cornelia and how her son Gaius may have influenced the way she was perceived.

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Hallett, Judith P. 2002. Women writing in Rome and Cornelia, mother of the Gracchi. In Women writing Latin from Roman Antiquity to Early Modern Europe. Vol. 1. Edited by Laurie J. Churchill, Phyllis R. Brown, and Jane E. Jeffrey, 13–24. New York and London: Routledge.

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Hallett argues that it is likely that the letters ascribed to Cornelia are genuine. She notes that the tone of the letters sounds rather aggressive; comparison with other letters by women, however, shows that this style was often assumed by female writers: since they had no formal authority over their sons, a masculine writing style was a way for women to assert influence over their husbands and sons.

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Hallett, Judith P. 2004. Matriot games? Cornelia, mother of the Gracchi, and the forging of family-oriented political values. In Women’s Influence on Classical Civilization. Edited by Fiona McHardy and Eireann Marshall, 26–39. London and New York: Routledge.

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Hallett investigates how parents motivated their children to display Roman values; people displaying them enhanced the political and social status of their families. She investigates the motivational strategy of the letters of Cornelia, in which she urges her son Gaius to behave honorably. Although Cornelia was not backed up by patria potestas, she employed powerful arguments, not only of a personal nature, but also motivated by political strategy.

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Hemelrijk, Emily A. Matrona docta. Educated women in the Roman élite from Cornelia to Julia Domna. London and New York: Routledge, 1999.

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Hemelrijk offers an overview of the education of elite women in the Roman world and their role as patronesses of the arts and as writers. Cornelia figures prominently, as a well-educated woman who also produced literary works. Hemelrijk believes the letters ascribed to her are genuine. She discusses Cornelia as a role model for the educated mother and as a female patron of writers and philosophers.

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Horsfall, Nicholas. 1987. The “letter of Cornelia”: Yet more problems. Athenaeum 65:231–234.

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Horsfall focuses on practices of quotation and citation used by ancient writers, and the way that the letters ascribed to Cornelia may have been reworked after she wrote them. He concludes that the letters certainly date from the 2nd century BCE, but he draws no definitive conclusion on whether they were written by Cornelia herself.

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Petrocelli, Corrado. 1994. Cornelia, la matrona. In Roma al femminile. Edited by Augusto Fraschetti, 21–70. Rome and Bari: Laterza.

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Petrocelli gives an overview of Cornelia’s life, emphasizing how unusual her public role was compared to that of other women of her time. He discusses her letters, which he thinks are genuine, her influence on the education and politics of her sons, and her statue, which emphasized her role as a Roman matrona.

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Cornelia’s Statue
Cornelia was exceptional in that a statue was erected in her honor, perhaps in the late 2nd century BCE, but possibly only in the Augustan period. The authenticity and date of her statue have caused debate; of the works cited here, Ruck 2004 is the most comprehensive and up-to-date, including archaeological evidence.

Coarelli, Federico. 1978. Le statue de Cornélie, mère des Gracques et la crise politique à Rome au temps de Saturninus. In Le dernier siècle de la République romaine et l’époque augustéenne, 13–28. Strasburg: Association pour l’étude de la civilisation romaine.

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Coarelli argues that the statue was erected in the last decade of the 2nd century BCE, when the populares were dominant in politics. Thus it would serve as a reminder of the activity of the Gracchi, and a subtle provocation against the optimates. (Also published in Revixit ars. Arte e ideologia a Roma, 280–299. Rome: Quasar, 1996.)

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Kajava, Mika. 1989. Cornelia Africani f. Gracchorum. Arctos 23:119–131.

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Kajava discusses the various theories about the date Cornelia’s statue was set up, with some arguing for a date between 107 and 100 BCE, when the populares were dominant, and some for a date during Gaius Gracchus’s lifetime. The statue remained in the Porticus Octaviae, even though the inscription was renewed in the Augustan period. Cornelia was, however, the only exemplary mother to be represented there.

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Ruck, Brigitte. 2004. Das Denkmal der Cornelia in Rom. Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archaologischen Instituts (Rom.) 111:477–494.

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Ruck discusses in detail the base of Cornelia’s statue. She argues that base dates to the mid-2nd century BCE, but since no other female statue is known from the Republic, an early date for a statue of Cornelia is unlikely. Only in the Augustan period was she chosen as a good example of Roman female virtue and her statue set up in the Porticus Octaviae, re-using an existing base.

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Tiberius Gracchus
The basic facts of the agrarian reform launched by Tiberius Gracchus are fairly clear: he proposed a law that limited the possession of ager publicus by existing holders to a maximum of 500 iugera, plus an additional amount for their children. All ager publicus held over and above the limit was to be returned to the state, which would distribute it to the poor. A three-man commission, the triumviri agris iudicandis adsignandis, was installed to carry out the measurement of land and the distribution. However, beyond these basic facts almost every element of the Gracchan land reform is hotly debated, see Land Reform. Opposition against Tiberius was strong from the start; the Senate tried to halt the land distributions in various ways, but Tiberius persisted. Eventually, when the Senate refused to give him money to carry out his work, Tiberius proposed to use the legacy of King Attalus of Pergamon, which he had left to the Roman state in his will. This infringed on the traditional right of the Senate to deal with finance and external politics. Tiberius had also had his fellow tribune Octavius deposed by the popular assembly (see The Deposition of Octavius), an unprecedented move. Because of this, he feared prosecution at the end of his term of office, and tried to be re-elected. During a meeting of the assembly, the nature of which is disputed, Tiberius was killed. The works in this section discuss Tiberius Gracchus in general, including his motivations and intentions, his political views, and the events of his tribunate. Most works on Tiberius are fairly old; Badian 1972 is still the best work in English, together with Bernstein 1978. Balbi 2013 is the only recent overview, but so far only available in Italian. Several articles discuss aspects of Tiberius’s life: Bleicken 1988 focuses on Tiberius’s motivations for reform, while Earl 1963 discusses the reform’s aims and effects. As Taylor 1962 points out, Tiberius was not the first tribune of the plebs who antagonized the establishment. Riddle 1970 is basically an overview of previous scholarship, but now rather out of date.

Badian, Ernst. 1972. Tiberius Gracchus and the beginning of the Roman revolution. Aufstieg und Niedergang der romischen Welt 1.1: 668–731.

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Despite its age, this is a very useful introduction, which critically analyzes ideas current at the time of writing, acknowledging that archaeological evidence may be interpreted differently than the traditional picture assumes. Badian discusses the possible Greek inspiration of Tiberius, the urban and rural crisis in Italy in 133, the reasons for senatorial opposition, the legal aspects and effects of the law, and the reasons for Tiberius’s fall from grace.

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Balbi, Mattia. 2013. Riformare la res publica. Retroterra sociale e significato politico del tribunato di Tiberio Gracco. Bari: Edipuglia.

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This short book is the most recent treatment of Tiberius’s reform. Balbi discusses the most recent theories on the development of population and agriculture, which caused the crisis that Tiberius tried to solve, taking full account of the various recent academic views. He then discusses Tiberius’s motivations for his attempt at reform, both personal and political, the motivations of his opponents, and the legal details of the lex Sempronia Agraria.

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Bernstein, Alvin H. 1978. Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus. Tradition and apostasy. Ithaca and London: Cornell Univ. Press.

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Bernstein gives an overview of the motivations of Tiberius’s reform. He then discusses the details of Tiberius’s law, such as who received land—only Roman citizens, in his view; he believes that the lex Sempronia was especially important for limiting amounts of pasture land that could be occupied. The book ends with a useful discussion of the sources used by Appian and Plutarch.

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Bleicken, Jochen. 1988. Überlegungen zum Volkstribunat des Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus. Historische Zeitschrift 247:265–293.

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Bleicken investigates why Tiberius Gracchus engaged in his legislative program; he argues that Tiberius had lost prestige in the Numantia affair of 137 BCE and needed to make a name for himself. His deposition of Octavius was aimed at strengthening the power of the people; however, as Bleicken argues, from the 2nd century BCE forward, many tribunes had used the tribunate to increase their personal power.

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Earl, D. C. 1963. Tiberius Gracchus. A study in politics. Brussels: Latomus.

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Earl discusses the technical details of Tiberius Gracchus’s agrarian reform and its effects. He argues that the main aim of the reform was to increase the number of soldiers, which was achieved by creating more assidui by land distributions. Earl then focuses on the political aspects of Tiberius’s tribunate, arguing that it was his attempt to use Attalus’s inheritance that caused the most resistance against him.

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Riddle, John M. 1970. Tiberius Gracchus: Destroyer or reformer of the Republic? Lexington, MA: Heath.

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This work collects various views about the political impact of Tiberius Gracchus from older academic works, including Mommsen, Greenidge, Gelzer, Last, Badian, and Taylor. Most of these are rather old, and since Riddle only presents excerpts, it would make more sense to read the separate works on their own, supplemented by more recent views.

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Taylor, Lily Ross. 1962. Forerunners of the Gracchi. Journal of Roman Studies 52:19–27.

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The Gracchi were not the first tribuni plebis to adopt unorthodox methods. As Taylor shows, earlier tribunes had also engaged in disputes with other magistrates, e.g., by imprisoning the consuls or blocking army recruitment. This increasingly happened by force in the late 2nd century BCE; the actions of the Gracchi followed logically from the route that the tribunate had taken in the previous decades.

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Land Reform
Beyond the basic facts of Tiberius Gracchus’s land reform, many issues are still hotly debated. Points of dispute include, among many others, which limit exactly was set on the possession of ager publicus. Appian states that each holder could retain 500 iugera, but all children received half this amount. Other sources give a maximum of 1,000 iugera. This has led many scholars to assume that the amount was 500 iugera for the main occupant and 250 for each of a maximum of two children. However, this is by no means certain. Furthermore, is not known how much land each settler received; the amount of thirty iugera is often suggested, based on a passage in the lex agraria. However, it is not certain that this was the amount distributed by the Gracchi. A further point of debate is whether the land distributed by the commission, as well as the land assigned to existing holders, remained ager publicus or became private land. Sale of the distributed land was forbidden by the law of 133; the plots distributed by Gaius Gracchus (but not by Tiberius) were, moreover, burdened with a tax (vectigal). The fact that sale of the assigned land was forbidden and that it may have been burdened with a tax has often been seen as evidence that the land did not become the private property of the settlers; on other hand, in that case it would not be counted in the census and therefore not create new soldiers. Another debated issue is whether intended recipients included Italian allies or only Roman citizens (see The Italian Allies). Furthermore, it is usually assumed that Tiberius was inspired by a previous law, which limited the possession of land, either ager publicus only or all land. Which earlier law this may have been is widely disputed, however, as well as its possible contents and date—suggestions ranging from the lex Licinia of 367 BCE to the early 2nd century BCE. Various theories about earlier models for Tiberius’s law are covered in Bringmann 1986 and Rich 2008. A good overview of the land reform is Bringmann 1985. Bauman 1979, Flach 1974, Hermon 1976, and Molthagen 1973 all discuss the legal details; see on this most recently Roselaar 2010 (cited under Economy). La Greca 2006 convincingly treats the thorny question of whether the land became private or remained public. Tipps 1988–1989 investigates whether the law of Tiberius also contained regulations on pastureland, although the sources mostly focus on agricultural land. Note that many articles in this section discuss issues further developed in Legal Powers of the Agrarian Commission.

Bauman, Richard A. 1979. The Gracchan agrarian commission: Four questions. Historia 28:385–408.

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Bauman discusses various issues concerning Tiberius Gracchus’s land reform, not all strictly to do with the agrarian commission as such. He argues that the previous law, about the maximum amount of land to be occupied, which Gracchus reinstated, should be dated to the early 2nd, rather than the 4th century; and that the Gracchan commission, despite Aemilianus’s attempts to stop it, retained its legal powers after 129 BCE.

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Bringmann, Klaus. 1985. Die Agrarreform des Tiberius Gracchus. Legende und Wirklichkeit. Stuttgart: Steiner Verlag.

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This book is a very useful short introduction into the land reforms. Bringmann gives a comprehensive overview of the economic and social causes of the problems leading to the Gracchan land reform, previous laws that attempted to limit occupation of ager publicus, and the consequences of the economic developments in the 2nd century BCE for small farmers. He then describes the technical and legal details of Tiberius Gracchus’s agrarian reform.

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Bringmann, Klaus. 1986. Das, Licinisch-Sextische’ Ackergesetz und die gracchische Agrarreform. In Symposion für Alfred Heuss. Edited by Jochen Bleicken, 51–66. Kallmünz, Germany: Lassleben.

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Bringmann argues that the pre-Gracchan law about the maximum amount of ager publicus to be occupied cannot have been the 4th century lex Licinia, since the economic situation of the time did not warrant passing such a law. The fact that an oath on the law is mentioned, which was often used in Caesar’s time, suggests that the tradition about the lex Licinia was not created until the mid-1st century BCE.

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Flach, Dieter. 1974. Die Ackergesetzgebung im Zeitalter der römischen Revolution. Historische Zeitschrift 217:265–295.

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Flach offers a detailed reconstruction of the various laws regarding ager publicus passed by Tiberius Gracchus and others (e.g., Sulla and Caesar). He discusses which groups in society received land from Tiberius and where land was available. He also investigates the various post-Gracchan laws, including the lex agraria of 111 and its possible identification with one of the laws in Appian—in his opinion the third.

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Hermon, Ella. 1976. La loi agraire de Tiberius Gracchus. Ktèma 1:179–186.

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Hermon focuses on the legal aspects of Tiberius Gracchus’s law, such as the question of whether the distributed land became private property of the recipients or not. She argues that the main aim of the Gracchi was to clear up the uncertainty regarding the status of ager publicus, by making it private property or giving security of tenancy on it.

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La Greca, Fernando. 2006. I beneficiari della legge agraria di Tiberio Gracco e le assegnazioni in Lucania. Rassegna storica salernitana 23:11–42.

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La Greca investigates whether the 500 iugera which was granted to possessores of ager publicus became private property or not. He argues that they did, since the aim of the Gracchan reform was to re-establish the small farmer-soldiers, an egalitarian policy inspired by Blossius of Cumae’s Stoic philosophy. This type of small farm is clearly attested in Lucania. La Greca thinks land was also granted to Latins and allies.

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Molthagen, Joachim. 1973. Die Durchführung der gracchischen Agrarreform. Historia 22:423–458.

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Molthagen gives a detailed discussion of the technical details of Tiberius’s law and its effects. He investigates why the census of 125 showed a great increase, but that of 131 did not, discussing various theories that have been proposed. He believes that this was due to the continuous decline of the population after 133; the rise in 125 might be explained by a lowering of the census qualification after 131.

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Perelli, Luciano. 1990. Questioni graccane. Rivista di filologia e di istruzione classica 118:237–252.

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Perelli discusses several issues related to the Gracchan period, e.g., the distribution of villas in Etruria, which appeared especially in the period 150–50 BCE; the number of slaves, which certainly rose in the 2nd century; the role of pasture lands in the Gracchan agrarian law, which he thinks did not play a large role; and the way in which Appian represents the Gracchan period, following his own agenda.

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Rich, John W. 2008. Lex licinia, lex sempronia: B.G. Niebuhr and the limitation of landholding in the Roman Republic. In People, land and politics: Demographic developments and the transformation of Roman Italy, 300 BC–AD 14. Edited by Luuk de Ligt and Simon J. Northwood, 488–572. Leiden, The Netherlands and Boston: Brill.

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Traditionally, it has been assumed that the lex licinia and lex Sempronia agraria concerned the occupation of ager publicus, leaving private landholdings alone. This thesis was established in the early 19th century and has been universally accepted since. Rich concludes that it is likely that the lex licinia limited the holding of all types of land, both public and private; Tiberius Gracchus’s law only limited the occupation of ager publicus.

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Tipps, G. K. 1988–1989. The generosity of grazing rights under the lex Sempronia agraria of 133 B.C. Classical Journal 84:334–342.

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Tipps argues that nobody knew how much ager publicus was available, so that it would be difficult to establish how much could be used for growing crops and how much could be used for grazing. He argues that, if the lex Sempronia indeed did give grazing rights, it would be very generous; it is therefore likely that the law was only concerned with arable land.

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Land Distributions
The geographical details of the land distributions carried out by the agrarian commission set up in 133 BCE have been debated. The Liber Coloniarum, a notoriously corrupt text, refers to “Gracchan boundaries” in many locations, leading to debate as to whether the Gracchan commission in fact assigned land there. De Martino 1984 tries to connect these references to the rise in the census figures, although their interpretation is debated and the author’s argument therefore not convincing. Attempts at locating Gracchan land distributions have been made; see Marzullo 1937 and Camodeca 1997 for a local study in southern Italy. Uggeri 2001 focuses on the previous uses of distributed land, arguing that Tiberius converted pasture into agricultural land, but this is, in fact, difficult to establish. Franciosi 2002 focuses on the most debated area, the ager Campanus, discussing a number of politicians involved in its distribution to Roman citizens.

Camodeca, Giuseppe. 1997. M. Aemilius Lepidus, cos. 126 a.C., le assegnazioni graccane e la via Aemilia in Hirpinia. Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 115:263–270.

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Two milestones found in the Hirpini area refer to a road built by a consul M. Aemilius Lepidus. Camodeca connects this evidence to the establishment of a forum at Fioccaglia dei Flúmeri, which most likely happened in connection with the Gracchan land distributions. He argues that this via Aemilia was built by the consul of 126 BCE, just after the forum was created.

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De Martino, Francesco. 1984. Gromatici e questioni graccane. In Sodalitas. Scritti in onore di Antonio Guarino. Vol. VII. 3125–3150. Naples: Jovene.

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De Martino discusses the term limites graccani appearing in the Liber Coloniarum. Most notices in the Liber are confirmed by other sources, like boundary stones. The Gracchi not only measured land for distribution, but also for confirmation of the holdings of veteres possessores. Based on the number of locations mentioned in the Liber, De Martino argues that about ten thousand people could have received land from the Gracchan land commission.

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Franciosi, Gennaro, ed. 2002. La romanizzazione della Campania antica. Naples: Jovene.

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This book contains several articles related to Gracchan activities in Campania and elsewhere. Russo discusses the general contents of Tiberius Gracchus’s agrarian law and whether Italians received land. G. Franciosi investigates whether Gaius Gracchus distributed land in Campania. A. Franciosi discusses the elogium of Polla and argues that the inscription was set up by Popilius Laenas, who might have distributed land here as part of an anti-Gracchan senatorial distribution scheme.

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Marzullo, Antonio. 1937. L’elogium di Polla, la via Popilia e l’applicazione della lex Sempronia agraria del 133 a. C. Rassegna storica salernitana 1:25–57.

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In this article Marzullo argues that land in the Val di Diano was distributed in 132 BCE by the consul Popilius, when he built the Via Popilia. This was part of an anti-Gracchan land distribution scheme, intended to undermine the popularity of the Gracchan party. Marzullo argues that Popilius also gave land to Italian allies, not only to citizens.

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Uggeri, Giovanni. 2001. Le divisioni agrarie di età graccana: un bilancio. In Dai Gracchi alla fine della Repubblica. Atti del V Convegno di studi sulla Puglia romana. Edited by Salvarore Alessandrì and Francesco Grelle, 31–60. Galatina: Congedo.

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Uggeri first discusses the causes of the economic problems that Tiberius Gracchus wanted to address and the technical details of the reform. He then attempts to establish where land was distributed, based on the Liber Coloniarum and the Gracchan boundary stones. He concludes that most were lands previously used for pasture, even though they were suitable for agriculture.

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Legal Powers of the Agrarian Commission
Despite senatorial opposition, Tiberius’s law to distribute land remained in force and a commission of three men, the triumviri agris iudicandis adsignandis, was formed to execute the law. They had the power to determine which land was ager publicus (iudicando) and distribute it to the poor (adsignando). In 129, Scipio Aemilianus managed to have the power to adjudicate disputes over land removed from the commission, and indeed land assignations seem to have stopped after this date. During Gaius Gracchus’s tribunate, however, they resumed. The exact powers and status of the land commission have led to much debate. The most recent treatment is Dart 2011, who argues that the powers of the commission were connected to the question of whether the land became private or not. Earlier treatments include Geer 1939 and Pani 1976/7, which both argue that the commission in fact retained its power to distribute land, but stopped its activities after 129, reactivating itself during Gaius’s tribunate. Debate has also surrounded the exact functioning of the Gracchan land commission, which consisted of three men; it is not clear whether these were in power simultaneously or by some sort of internal election mechanism. Seibert 1972 is the most convincing, arguing that there is no evidence for any strict division in powers between the members.

Dart, Christopher J. 2011. The impact of the Gracchan land commission and the “dandis” power of the triumvirs. Hermes 139:337–357.

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Dart argues, although not totally convincingly, that after 129 the commission received the power not only to adjudicate disputes, but also to give ager publicus to individuals in private ownership, the so-called datio power. This means that the assigned land did not become privately owned until after that date, which explains the fact that the census figures only rose in 125–124, rather than 131–130.

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Geer, Russel M. 1939. Notes on the land law of Tiberius Gracchus. Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association 70:30–36.

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Geer investigates two issues related to the lex Sempronia agraria: first, the date of the law, which he fixes at 19 February 133 BCE; and second, the supposed loss of powers by the land commission in 129. Geer argues that the commission continued its activities after 129, since the preserved boundary stones describe the commission as triumviri a(gri) i(udicandis) a(dsignandis).

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Pani, M. 1976/7. Potere di iudicatio e lavori della commissione agraria graccana dal 129 al 121 a. C. Annali della facolta di lettere e filosofia dell’università di Bari 19/20:129–146.

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The surviving boundary stones of the Gracchan land commission, dated to 123 BCE, describe the members as triumviri agris iudicandis adsignandis, although the sources state that the commission lost its legal powers in 129 BCE. Pani explains this by arguing that the Gracchan commission had retained its jurisdiction over land belonging to the state and to Roman citizens after 129, but had lost the power to adjudicate cases involving allies.

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Seibert, Jakob. 1972. IIIviri agris iudicandis adsignandis lege Sempronia. Rivista storica dell’antichità 2:53–86.

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Seibert investigates the way in which the Gracchan commission was elected. It has often been thought that only one of the three members was active at any one time, but Seibert thinks it more likely that all three members acted together. Some assume that the chairman of the commission was changed every year, but Seibert argues that a regular pattern cannot be discerned.

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Opposition
Tiberius Gracchus’s actions soon caused opposition, especially among the Senate. This was partially motivated by the fact that many senators held public land, and partially by the fear that Tiberius would gain too much personal power through his popularity with the plebs. When his measures were blocked by the Senate, who refused to give him money to execute the law, Tiberius tried to use the legacy of Attalus of Pergamon to fund his activities. Furthermore, he tried to be re-elected as tribune, and deposed his fellow tribune Octavius who tried to veto his proposals. All this eventually led to a riot headed by the pontifex maximus Scipio Nasica, in which Tiberius was killed. Boren 1961 focuses on the question of what exactly caused the Senate to oppose Tiberius, with most scholars agreeing that his political actions were the most controversial. Gabba 1974 focuses on the economic motivations behind senatorial opposition. Briscoe 1974 is a good overview of the various factions in Roman politics at the time; see also Rankov 1987. Some have argued that the Senate started its own, anti-Gracchan land distribution scheme in order to divert popularity from Tiberius, but, as Burckhardt 1989 argues, there is no real evidence for this.

Boren, Henry C. 1961. Tiberius Gracchus: the opposition view. American Journal of Philology 82:358–369.

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In this article, Boren argues that it was especially Tiberius’s political actions that triggered opposition, such as his disregard for the opinion of the Senate, the distribution of Attalus’s inheritance, his deposition of another tribune, and his attempt at re-election. This made the Senate think that he aimed at tyranny, which had to be prevented at all costs.

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Briscoe, John. 1974. Supporters and opponents of Tiberius Gracchus. Journal of Roman Studies 64:125–135.

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Briscoe examines the prosopography of the men who supported and opposed Tiberius Gracchus. He first studies the family of Tiberius himself and then the senators who supported Tiberius, many of whom were also related to him by marriage. Many who opposed him were supporters and friends of Scipio Aemilianus, who had many political friendships within the Senate, although these did not always sufficed to guarantee loyalty to Aemilianus.

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Burckhardt, Leonhard A. 1989. Gab es in der Gracchenzeit ein optimatischer Siedlungsprogramm? Bemerkungen zum Elogium von Polla und den vi]asiei vicani aus dem Ackergesetz von 111 v. Chr. In Labor omnibus unus. Gerold Walser zum 70. Geburtstag. Edited by Heinz E. Herzig and Regula Frei-Stolba, 3–20. Stuttgart: F. Steiner Verlag.

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Many scholars assume that the opponents of the Gracchi in the Senate started a land distribution program of their own in order to undermine his position. This idea is based especially on the epigraphic elogium of Polla, an inscription referring to land distributions in the Val di Diano. Burckhardt argues, however, that there is not enough evidence for this.

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Gabba, Emilio. 1974. Motivazioni economiche nell’opposizione alla legge agraria di Tib. Sempronio Graccho. In Polis and imperium. Studies in honour of Edward Togo Salmon. Edited by J. A. S. Evans, 129–158. Toronto: Hakkert.

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Gabba assumes that Tiberius Gracchus’s main aim was to increase the number of soldiers. He argues that the developments leading to the Gracchan crises, namely the accumulation of land by the rich, could not be stopped by a redistribution of land to the poor, which would only be a temporary measure. Gaius Gracchus’s proposal to establish colonies overseas therefore provided a more permanent solution.

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Rankov, Boris. 1987. M. Iunius Congus the Gracchan. In Homo viator. Classical essays for John Bramble. Edited by Michael Whitby, Philip Hardie, and Mary Whitby, 89–94. Bristol: Bristol Classical Press.

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Rankov argues that Congus was a moderate Gracchan, who proposed the lex Iunia de Repetundis—a law offering protection against magistrates who abused their power—preserved on a tablet found in Urbino. This idea goes against the more usual idea that this was M. Iunius Silanus, cos. 109 BCE.

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Scipio Aemilianus
One of the main opponents of Tiberius Gracchus was Scipio Aemilianus, his brother-in-law and the conqueror of Numantia in 133 BCE. Although he played no direct role in the events of 133, since he was still in Spain, he took the lead in the anti-Gracchan movement after his return. In 129, he was responsible for curtailing the activities of the Gracchan land commission (see Legal Powers of the Agrarian Commission); soon after, he died in mysterious circumstances. Astin 1967 is still the most comprehensive biography of Aemilianus; Scullard 1960 is still essential for Aemilianus’s role in politics at the time. Beness 2005 is the most recent investigation of Aemilianus’s involvement in blocking the Gracchan land distributions. Aemilianus claimed a special relationship with the gods, which also played a role in politics, as Berti 1990 points out.

Astin, Alan E. 1967. Scipio Aemilianus. Oxford: Clarendon.

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Astin gives a comprehensive overview of Aemilianus’s life and career. The last three chapters are directly related to the Gracchi, covering the events of 133 BCE. Aemilianus was in Numantia at the time, but when he returned to Rome, he vigorously opposed the land distributions. As a triumphant general, he might have expected popular sympathy, but his opposition to Tiberius made him one of the least popular politicians in Rome.

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Beness, J. Lea. 2005. Scipio Aemilianus and the crisis of 129 B.C. Historia 54:37–48.

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Beness investigates the exact role of Aemilianus in the attempt to halt the activities of the Gracchan land commission. A neglected passage of Cicero suggests that Aemilianus may have been offered the dictatorship or a special command, but, as Beness argues, this may have come to nothing because of senatorial reluctance to give one man so much power, since the dangers of tyranny had been made clear by Tiberius’s actions.

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Berti, Nadia. 1990. Scipione Emiliano, Caio Gracco e l’“evocation” di “Giunone” da Cartagine. Aevum 64:69–75.

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The tradition of evocatio involved the practice of inviting the god of an enemy to join the Roman side. Scipio Aemilianus is said to have invited Juno, patron goddess of Carthage, in 146 BCE, which would have suited his reputation as a traditional, pious Roman. Berti interprets the name of Gaius Gracchus’s colony at Carthage, Junonia, as a conscious claim to the support of Juno against Scipio.

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Scullard, Howard Hayes. 1960. Scipio Aemilianus and Roman politics. Journal of Roman Studies 50:59–74.

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Scullard investigates the ideas of Aemilianus and his supporters about the problems that plagued the Republic in the second half of the 2nd century BCE. He analyzes the attempt of Aemilianus’s friend Laelius to solve the problems of the small farmers in 140. Even in 133, Scullard argues, many senators were still willing to work together to find a solution, but this possibility was shattered by Tiberius’s aggressive methods.

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The Deposition of Octavius
One of the most controversial actions of Tiberius Gracchus was the deposition of his fellow tribune Marcus Octavius. Octavius continually blocked Tiberius’s proposal for land distribution; Tiberius then proceeded to convince the concilium plebis to remove Octavius, with the argument that he was not acting in the interest of the plebs, was therefore unsatisfactory as a tribunus plebis, and could therefore be removed by the plebs who had elected him. Guarino 1970 and Sordi 1981 debate the legality of this action, arguing that this was indeed legally possible, although Sordi 1981 is more nuanced. Morgan and Walsh 1978 emphasizes the illegal and shocking nature of Tiberius’s actions, which contributed greatly to his downfall. As Sumner 1963 argues, his actions led to new legislation in order to prevent anyone else following his example. Other scholarly works focus on the relationship between Tiberius and Octavius, since some sources state that they had been friends before they became enemies. Epstein 1983 argues that they may have been friends, but that Octavius certainly was insulted by Tiberius during the debates on the agrarian law; see Linderski 1982 for a philological study.

Epstein, David F. 1983. Inimicitia between M. Octavius and Ti. Gracchus, tribuni plebis, 133 B.C. Hermes 111:296–300.

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Epstein investigates the different traditions about the relationship between Tiberius and Octavius, who is sometimes described as his friend and sometimes as his enemy. Cicero states that Octavius had suffered iniuria from Tiberius, probably during the debates about the agrarian law, before he was finally deposed. Epstein argues that Octavius already bore a grudge toward Tiberius before the debate started, although the cause of this grudge cannot be determined.

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Guarino, Antonio. 1970. L’abrogazione di Ottavio. Atti dell’Academia di scienze morali e politiche della Società Nazionale di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti di Napoli 81:236–266.

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Guarino argues that there was no legal impediment to Tiberius’s deposition of Octavius, since his argument that the people had elected Octavius and could therefore depose him was correct. (Also published in Pagine di diritto romano III, 303–339. Naples: De Frede, 1994.)

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Linderski, Jerzy. 1982. Patientia fregit: M. Octavius and Ti. Gracchus (Cicero, Brutus 95). Athenaeum 60:244–247.

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Linderski investigates the historiographical tradition that the actions of Tiberius Gracchus spelled the beginning of the end for the Republic. A passage of Cicero refers to Tiberius’s deposition of Octavius; Linderski examines the various meanings of the terms patientia (endurance) and constantia (tenacity) used by Cicero and argues that, while Octavius displayed patientia in accepting his fate with grace, Tiberius’s tenacity eventually led to the downfall of the Republic.

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Morgan, M. Gwyn, and John A. Walsh. 1978. Ti. Gracchus (tr. pl. 133 B.C.), the Numantine affair, and the deposition of M. Octavius. Classical Philology 73:200–210.

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In contrast to the picture of Tiberius Gracchus as a moderate politician, Morgan and Walsh emphasize the illegal and radical nature of his deposition of Octavius. They argue that Tiberius, after his disgrace at Numantia, was desperate to re-establish his reputation. They show that in the previous decades many abnormal actions had been undertaken by tribunes against sitting magistrates. Tiberius, however, was more radical than any who had gone before.

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Sordi, Marta. 1981. La sacrosanctitas tribunizia e le sovranità popolare in un discorso di Tiberio Gracco. In Religione e politica nel mondo antico. Edited by M. Sordi, 124–130. Milan: Vita e pensiero.

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The deposition of Octavius might be argued to have been illegal, since the tribunes were sacrosanct. On the other hand, as Sordi argues, Tiberius emphasized the power of the people, who had elected the tribunes and could therefore depose them as well. It could therefore at least be construed as legal, as Tiberius demonstrated.

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Sumner, Graham V. 1963. Lex Aelia, lex Fufia. AJPh 84:337–358.

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According to Sumner, the lex Fufia forbade proposing laws immediately before elections, while the lex Aelia confirmed the use of obnuntiatio and intercessio in legislative meetings. Sumner argues that these rules were already force by Tiberius’s time, but were part of the unwritten constitution. Since Tiberius disregarded them, the two laws were passed after his tribunate to confirm these issues officially and to limit the power of the tribuni plebis.

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Death
The final meeting of the popular assembly called by Tiberius ended in a riot, which was led by the pontifex maximus Scipio Nasica, a cousin of Tiberius. Debate for this episode has focused mostly on a gesture by Nasica mentioned in several sources: he positioned his toga in such a way that it was either wrapped around his hand or put over his head. This may have been a ritual gesture indicating that Nasica “sacrificed” Tiberius or forfeited his life to the gods. The most convincing treatment of this issue is Linderski 2002; Clark 2007 ignores many of Linderski’s points. It is also important to emphasize that it was Nasica, not Tiberius Gracchus, who started the violence, as Binot 2001 rightly points out. Nasica’s afterlife and the way it could be used in later conflicts between the Senate and the tribunes of the plebs are treated in Coarelli 1969. Some debate has focused on the question of whether Tiberius’s last assembly, during which he was killed, was the election for the tribunate of the next year, as Earl 1965 suggests, or a legislative assembly, as Taylor 1963 and Taylor 1966 argue. On balance the latter seems more likely, but the question cannot be answered definitively. After Tiberius’s death a senatorial embassy was sent to the temple of Ceres at Enna. This may have intended to pacify the gods—the Senate knew well that it was not blameless in Tiberius’s death, as Spaeth 1990 argues. Dillon 2013 reinvestigates the embassy and argues that it was connected to the Sicilian slave war, rather than to the events surrounding Tiberius’s death.

Binot, Cyril. 2001. Le rôle de Scipion Nasica Serapion dans la crise gracquienne, une relecture, In Héritage de l’antique dans l’art européen: Delphes. Edited by Hélène Guirraud, 185–203. Toulouse: Presses Universitaires du Mirail.

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Binot points out that it was in fact Scipio Nasica who was the first to use violence in politics, not Tiberius Gracchus himself, as is often forgotten. He traces Scipio’s career and his motivations for opposing the Gracchi; unfortunately, other than his dislike of the plebs, it is not possible to identify these. Binot then traces Scipio’s actions against Tiberius, which were clearly illegal, since he held no official position.

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Clark, Anna F. 2007. Nasica and fides. Classical Quarterly 57:125–131.

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The sources differ on the way in which Scipio Nasica wore his toga when he acted to stop Gracchus. Clark believes he wrapped it around his left arm, which she interprets as a conscious reversal of ritual, since normally priests entered the temple of Fides with their right hands covered, whereas Nasica was now leaving it in order to kill Tiberius.

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Coarelli, Filippo. 1969. Le tyrannoctone du Capitole et la mort de Tiberius Gracchus. Mélanges d’archéologie et d’histoire 81:137–160.

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In 52 BCE, statues of Scipio Nasica were erected by Metellus Scipio, in association with Nasica’s role in the death of Tiberius Gracchus. Coarelli investigates the locations were the action against Tiberius took place, and argues that these statues were put up exactly on the location where Tiberius was murdered. Metellus Scipio was probably motivated by the actions of Clodius in 52, which he presented as an attempt at regnum.

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Dillon, John N. 2013. The delegation of the Xviri to Enna ca. 133 BC and the murder of Tiberius Gracchus. Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies 56:89–103.

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Dillon argues, against Spaeth 1990, that there was no need to propitiate Ceres because Tiberius was not made sacer to her, since Nasica’s action was illegal anyway. Dillon argues that the delegation was not sent specifically to atone for the murder of Gracchus, but was connected to the Sicilian slave war, which had just ended; the embassy intended to reconcile the gods of Sicily to Roman rule.

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Earl, D. C. 1965. Tiberius Gracchus’ last assembly. Athenaeum 43:95–105.

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The sources differ in describing the function of the assembly during which Tiberius Gracchus was killed. Appian states that it was the election for the next year’s tribunate, while others suggest it was a legislative assembly. Taylor 1963 argued that the assembly was legislative, but Earl maintains that it was electoral, since the tribes seem to have voted at the same time, as was normal in elections.

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Linderski, Jerzy. 2002. The pontiff and the tribune: The death of Tiberius Gracchus. Athenaeum 90:339–366.

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After a detailed investigation of different ways in which the toga could be worn, Linderski argues that Nasica wore his toga upside down, showing the purple border around his head. This was normal in situations relating to death, e.g., at funerals and when pronouncing death sentences. In this way, Tiberius would be consecrated to the wrath of the gods, the traditional punishment for those who attempted to establish a tyranny.

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Spaeth, Barbette S. 1990. The goddess Ceres and the death of Tiberius Gracchus. Historia 39:182–195.

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Spaeth argues that the purpose of the senatorial delegation to Enna was to justify the view that Tiberius was rightfully punished, since he had violated the law that forbade the establishment of a tyranny; the Senate needed to propitiate Ceres because Tiberius was not made sacer to her. The temple at Henna was chosen because sacrifice at Rome could have caused further violence by the plebs.

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Taylor, Lily R. 1963. Was Tiberius Gracchus’ last assembly electoral or legislative? Athenaeum 41:51–69.

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Taylor investigates in detail what happened during the meeting in order to establish whether the assembly during which Tiberius was killed met for elections or legislation. She discusses the call for people to come to Rome, the voting procedure, and the location where the assembly was held, and she concludes that the meeting was most likely legislative, perhaps concerning a law to make it legal to hold two tribunates successively.

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Taylor, Lily R. 1966. Appian and Plutarch on Tiberius Gracchus’ last assembly. Athenaeum 44:238–250.

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After Earl’s rejection of Taylor’s earlier paper, she revisits the question of the function of Tiberius’s last assembly. She focuses on the professio of candidates, which had to occur a trinundinum before the election, and she argues, on the basis of the voting procedure, that Appian confused the deadline for professio with the end of the trinundinum before the elections took place. She maintains therefore that the assembly was legislative.

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Greek Influence on Tiberius
The sources mention various Greek philosophers who were friends of Tiberius Gracchus. Brown 1947 and La Greca 1995 suggest that Tiberius was motivated in his land reform by ideals of an equal society as expressed by Greek authors, or by tenets of Stoicism. Ossier 2004 emphasizes Tiberius’s own desire for power as his main motivation. Dudley 1941 emphasizes Blossius of Cumae’s personal loyalty to Rome and Tiberius, which led Tiberius to sacrifice himself while doing what he thought was best for the state. Sordi 1984 shows how “Greekness” could be used as both praise and insult in the presentation of Tiberius’s character.

Brown, Trundell S. 1947. Greek influence on Tiberius Gracchus. Classical Journal 42:471–474.

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Brown points out similarities between a speech of Tiberius, in which he claimed that Rome had conquered the whole world, and speeches reported by Thucydides. He then investigates the possible way in which such Greek imperialistic ideas, specifically the idea that imperialism and democracy can be united, could have reached Tiberius. Brown identifies Blossius of Cumae as the main source of Greek and Stoic influence.

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Dudley, Donald R. 1941. Blossius of Cumae. Journal of Roman Studies 31:94–99.

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Blossius was apparently the closest philosopher friend of Tiberius. Dudley focuses on Blossius’sorigins in Cumae and suggests that an ancestor may have been one of the 300 Campanian knights loyal to Rome in the Second Punic War, who were rewarded with the citizenship of Cumae. Dudley argues that his loyalty to Rome, and to Tiberius, had more influence on Tiberius than his philosophical views.

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La Greca, Fernando. 1995. Blossio di Cuma: stoicismo e politica nella Roma dei Gracchi. Quaderni del Dipartimento di Scienze dell’Educazione—Università di Salerno 5:141–177.

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In this excellent article, La Greca usefully collects all sources regarding Blossius and the gens Blossia. He then discusses Blossius’s Athenian connections, his Stoic ideas, and his possible influence on Tiberius Gracchus; he argues that Blossius may have incited Tiberius to social reform but overestimated the chance of success, since Rome was different from Athens. La Greca finishes by investigating whether Blossius incited Aristonicus of Pergamum’s revolt against Rome.

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Ossier, John F. 2004. Greek cultural influence and the revolutionary policies of Tiberius Gracchus. Studia historica, historia antigua 22:63–69.

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This rather badly written article investigates the influence that Greek philosophers, such as Diophanes of Mytilene and Blossius of Cumae, may have had on the agrarian reform of Tiberius Gracchus, and especially on the illegal methods Tiberius used. Ossier argues that the purpose of Tiberius’s reform was to gain clients and to increase his personal power; he was not motivated by altruistic ideals of social equality.

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Sordi, Marta. 1984. I maestri greci di Tiberio Gracco e la polemica antigraccana. In Sodalitas. Scritti in onore di Antonio Guarino. 125–136. Naples: Jovene.

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Sordi investigates the way in which Tiberius’s Greek connections were used in the polemic against him. She argues that the emphasis on Greek influence was introduced into historiography by his enemies, who wanted to present his ideas as un-Roman and therefore worthless, while his opponents were presented as staunch defenders of Roman values. Against this, Gaius Gracchus presented his brother as a defender of the Roman people and Roman values.

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The Italian Allies
Heated debate has developed on the question of whether Italian allies received land from the Gracchan agrarian commission, caused mostly by the confused way in which Appian describes the role of the Italian allies in Roman politics. Some scholars have attempted to clarify the meaning of the confusing term Italiotai in Appian, the most important sources. This term is often translated as “Italian allies,” but if Appian meant something else by it, this would change our interpretation of the land distributions. Bleicken 1990 concludes that it cannot mean “Italian allies”; Nagle 1970 determines that it refers to Roman citizens rather than Italians. Against this Wulff-Alonso 1986 argues that it does refer to the allies, which is overall more likely. Other scholars focus on whether it would make sense that the Italians received land from the Gracchi and whether this was permitted by law; Richardson 1980 forcefully argues that they received land, but Kukofka 1990 and Shochat 1970 conclude, more reasonably, that this is unlikely; see most recently also Roselaar 2010 (cited under Economy). Nagle 1976 looks at the economic crisis from the Italian perspective, suggesting that Tiberius may have been motivated by the fate of Italian small farmers, even if he could not help them in practice. Italian resentment about the loss of ager publicus was one of the main motivations for the outbreak of the Social War in 91 BCE, as Mouritsen 1998 rightly argues.

Bleicken, Jochen. 1990. Tiberius Gracchus und die italischen Bundesgenossen. In Memoria rerum veterum. Neue Beiträge zur antiken Historiographie und alten Geschichte. Festschrift für Carl Joachim Classen zum 60. Geburtstag. Edited by Wolfram Ax, 101–131. Stuttgart, Germany: F. Steiner Verlag.

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Bleicken investigates whether the Italian allies received land as part of Tiberius Gracchus’s land reform, and how we should interpret the term Italiotai, which appears in Appian. He argues that, before the Social War, this term could not mean “Italian allies” and that Appian is therefore unreliable; he concludes therefore that the allies did not receive land from Tiberius Gracchus.

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Kukofka, Dirk-Achim. 1990. Waren die Bundesgenossen an den Landverteilungen des Tiberius Gracchus beteiligt? Tyche 5:45–61.

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Kukofka argues that the Italians had no legal right to occupy ager publicus and that they were not granted land by the Gracchi. Appian states that the allies received land because he used pro-Gracchan source, which endeavored to present the Gracchi as friendly to the allies.

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Mouritsen, Henrik. 1998. Italian unification. A study in ancient and modern historiography. London: Institute of Classical Studies.

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This stimulating and controversial work is not primarily about the Gracchi, but pp. 142–150 discuss the impact of the Gracchan land distributions on the desire for Roman citizenship among the Italians. Mouritsen argues that the fact that the Gracchi distributed ager publicus, which the Italians were using, caused great resentment among the Italians, and that Drusus’s attempts in 91 BCE to distribute land led directly to the Social War.

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Nagle, D. Brendan. 1970. The failure of the Roman political process in 133 B.C. Athenaeum 48:372–394.

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Nagle discusses the question of whether the Italians received land from Tiberius Gracchus, as Appian suggests; he believes that Appian confused Roman citizens living in the countryside with Italian allies, since allies could not receive land. He points out that the Gracchi confirmed the holdings of ager publicus held by many of the so-called veteres possessores, but believes that Italian holders were not entitled to keep any public land.

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Nagle, D. Brendan. 1976. The Etruscan journey of Tiberius Gracchus. Historia 25:487–489.

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In this important article, Nagle investigates how much Tiberius Gracchus knew about agriculture in Italy. While travelling through Etruria he may have concluded that subsistence agriculture was declining, since there were many large villas there. However, archaeological evidence shows that elsewhere many small farms still existed; Tiberius either did not know that small farmers were still dominant in Italy, or he misrepresented the facts in order to achieve his aims.

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Richardson, John S. 1980. The ownership of Roman land: Tiberius Gracchus and the Italians. Journal of Roman Studies 70:1–11.

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An essential article for the study of the Italians and their relationship with Rome. Richardson investigates whether Italians received land from the Gracchan land commission and concludes that they did; furthermore, since ager publicus could only be given to Roman citizens, he suggests that the Italians who received land received Roman citizenship at the same time. Although this conclusion is unlikely, this article provides an important contribution to the debate.

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Shochat, Yanir. 1970. The lex Agraria of 133 B.C. and the Italian allies. Athenaeum 48:25–45.

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This article investigates the complex problem of whether Tiberius Gracchus intended to give land to the Italian allies as well as to destitute Roman citizens. Shochat argues that Tiberius indeed wanted to do so, but was unable to, because Italians had no legal right to ager publicus.

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Wulff-Alonso, Fernando. 1986. Apiano: La colonización romana y los planes de Tiberio Graco. Latomus 45:485–504, 731–750.

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The author discusses in detail which group of people is indicated by the term Italiotai in Appian; he concludes that Italiotai means Italian allies. Appian’s confusion about the meaning of the term may have been the result of his use of a different source for the introduction to the Civil Wars than for the rest of his work.

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Gaius Gracchus
Ten years after Tiberius Gracchus’s tribunate, his brother Gaius Sempronius Gracchus (154 BCE–121 BCE) took up the interests of the Roman people as tribune of the plebs in 123 BCE. He already had some experience with land reform as a member of Tiberius’s commission for land distribution. He attempted to find support not only among the rural poor, as Tiberius had done, but among a wide section of the population, including the equites, the urban poor, and the Italian allies. This necessitated a larger program of reform, so that Gaius proposed a large number of laws intended to satisfy his various supporters. The laws proposed by Gaius Gracchus were more varied than those of his brother. In Gaius’s eyes, the Senate held too much power and could not be corrected by current legal process, leading him to pass judicial legislation. Many of these laws remained in force long after his death. He also passed agrarian legislation, but very little is known about it, and proposed to settle colonies in and outside of Italy, a few of which were in fact established. He also proposed citizenship legislation for the Italian allies. Gaius remained popular with the people and was re-elected tribune for the next year. However, his measures caused resentment among the Senate, and he was eventually killed on the Senate’s authority (see Death). In contrast to the larger number of studies on Tiberius Gracchus, Gaius Gracchus and his legislation have not yet been the subject of a monograph. This is a serious lack in scholarship, since many of Gaius’s laws survived for a long time, making his impact on Roman society arguably larger than that of his brother. Nor have all of Gaius’s laws have been the subject of academic study. The studies in this section discuss various general aspects of Gaius’s activities and legislation. Horvath 1994 considers the aims of Gaius’s legislation as a whole and rightly praises his skills as a drafter of laws. Mantovani 1994 investigates some of Gaius’s legal innovations, but not in much detail, while Rowland 1965 discusses the benefits that his laws brought to the equestrian class. Reiter 1978 points out, importantly, that Gaius was part of group of aristocrats, including, most importantly, Fulvius Flaccus, aiming for reform; more research on his alliances would be very useful. Gaius was considered an extremely accomplished orator already in Antiquity; surprisingly, few studies have investigated his rhetorical abilities in detail, so Sciarrino 2007 is a welcome addition.

Horvath, Robert. 1994. The origins of the Gracchan revolution. Studies in Latin literature and Roman history 7:87–116.

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Horvath argues that, in the 2nd century BCE, many new legal procedures were established, no longer based on the mos maiorum but on rational analysis of what was needed; especially in the period just before the Gracchi, many innovations were introduced. One of the main aims of Gaius Gracchus was to create clarity in the legal status of ager publicus, which fits into this modernizing trend.

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Mantovani, Dario. 1994. Gaio Gracco e i ΔIKAΣTAI di Plut. C.Gr. 3.7. Athenaeum 82:13–29.

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Plutarch’s Life of Gaius praises the justice of the legal system in the Roman Republic; Mantovani focuses on the statement that a personal announcement had to be made at the accused’s house before the trial could start. He examines exactly how the accused and the juries were called to trial in the pre-Gracchan period and the various legal innovations in Gaius’s time, especially with regard to the juries.

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Reiter, William L. 1978. M. Fulvius Flaccus and the Gracchan coalition. Athenaeum 56:125–144.

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Reiter argues that Flaccus, most likely the son of a senator disgraced in 174, was eager to re-establish his family’s reputation. He had been consul in 125 BCE and had achieved military success in 124–123 BCE, and was therefore extremely important in Roman politics when Gaius Gracchus was elected. Reiter argues that Flaccus may have influenced Gaius’s policies to a great extent, especially in his less radical first tribunate.

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Rowland, Robert J. 1965. C. Gracchus and the Equites. Transactions of the American Philological Association 96:361–373.

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Rowland examines the connections between Gaius Gracchus and the equites. With regard to his lex Iudiciaria some sources state that Gracchus transferred control of the courts to the equites, others that the courts now consisted of both equites and senators. Most of Gaius’s other proposals were beneficial to the equestrian class; this fits with his ideal to create a balance of power between the equestrian and senatorial class.

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Sciarrino, Enrica. 2007. Roman oratory before Cicero: the Elder Cato and Gaius Gracchus. In A companion to Roman rhetoric. Edited by William J. Dominik and Jonathan C. R. Hall, 54–66. Malden, MA and Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.

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Gaius Gracchus had a reputation in later Roman history as a very accomplished orator. Sciarrino investigates the most recent insights on Gaius’s rhetorical prowess; she gives special attention to the relationship between oratory and theatre and the way in which techniques from the theatre, such as word rhythm, gestures, changes of vocal pitch, eye movements, et cetera, could be used in speeches to manipulate the emotions of the audience.

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The Judicial Legislation
In order to curb the powers of the Senate, Gaius passed several laws relating to the political process and law; the starting point for all these laws is Mackay 1994. Gaius’s leges repetundarum (of which there were most likely several) made it easier for provincials to take legal action against corrupt and greedy governors of the senatorial order. It established a permanent court for extortion cases, staffed by a jury of equites. Sherwin-White 1972 is essential reading for the date at which the law was passed, while Sherwin-White 1982 argues that the law excellently illustrates Gaius’s depth of vision about the problems of the Roman constitution, as well as his abilities as a drafter of laws. Gaius’s lex Acilia repetundarum is probably the law preserved on the same tablet as the lex agraria. In order to administrate the extortion court, Gaius turned it into a provincia, assigned to one of the praetors; see Brennan 2000 for the effects of this decision. Debate has focused on Gaius’s supposed reform of the law courts by a lex iudiciaria, which would have given control of all the law courts to the equites, as opposed to the senators; however, as Griffin 1973 and Mackay 1994 argue, this law applied only to the courts on repetundae. Gaius also introduced a lex de provinciis consularibus, by which the provinces to which the ex-consuls would be sent after their term of office were chosen before the consuls were actually elected. Other laws by Gaius are more difficult to reconstruct exactly, since they are only known from brief references in later written sources. The debate on these laws therefore contains a lot of intricate technical detail. A law called in modern scholarship the lex ne de capite civis romani iniussu populi romani iudicetur, mentioned by Cicero, apparently limited the power of the consuls to exile citizens without trial by means of relegatio, as Mackay 1994 suggests. Another law, known from Cicero’s Pro Cluentio and called the lex ne quis iudicio circumveniatur, is often connected to the lex ne iudicetur, although probably incorrectly, according to Mackay 1994. It apparently made changes to the regulations on bribery in juries and was taken up by Livius Drusus, tribune of the plebs in 91 BCE; see Ewins 1960 and Miners 1958. Nicolet 1959 suggests that Gaius attempted to change voting procedure in the centuriate assembly, but Badian 1962 (cited under Bibliographies) rightly warns against accepting this idea.

Brennan, T. Corey. 2000. The praetorship in the Roman Republic. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.

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This excellent work explores in detail the workings and development of the praetorship in the Republic. Gaius Gracchus made some important changes to the tasks of the praetor; especially relevant was the creation of a provincia repetundarum, by which the extortion court was assigned to one of the praetors. This, in the long term, had very serious negative effects on Roman administration.

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Ewins, Ursula. 1960. Ne quis iudicio circumveniatur. Journal of Roman Studies 50:94–107.

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Ewins develops Miners’ ideas and argues that the law under debate should be connected to Gaius’s lex ne de capite civis romani iniussu populi romani iudicetur; she argues that the lex ne quis iudicio had been proposed as a law against unjust condemnations by senatorial juries, but was taken up again by Drusus in 91 BCE and reformed into a law against the acceptance of bribes by juries.

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Griffin, Miriam T. 1973. The “leges iudiciariae” of the pre-Sullan era. Classical Quarterly 23:108–126.

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The author discusses several laws about legal procedure, including those of Gaius Gracchus. With regard to Gaius’s legislation, she argues that he sponsored only one law relating to legal matters, namely an extortion law that transferred the right to sit on juries in these cases to the equites. He did not, Griffin argues against other scholars, issue a separate law entailing a complete overhaul of the judiciary system.

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Mackay, Christopher S. 1994. The Judicial Legislation of Gaius Sempronius Gracchus. PhD diss., Harvard University.

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This important PhD thesis has unfortunately never been published, but is available through the normal thesis collections. It offers a complete overview of all Gaius’s judicial laws (some of which are hardly ever discussed by others scholars), including the lex ne de capite civis romani iniussu populi romani iudicetur, the leges Iunia and Acilia repetundarum, and the lex ne quis iudicio circumveniatur, of which he offers excellent interpretations.

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Miners, N. J. 1958. The Lex Sempronia ne quis iudicio circumveniatur. Classical Quarterly 8:241–243.

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Miners discusses the various previous views on this law and concludes that it was a law that renewed and modified an existing law about provocatio. It forbade the appointment of extraordinary judicial commissions with the power to impose a capital sentence; this would have protected Gaius if charges were to be brought against him after his term in office.

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Nicolet, Claude. 1959. Confusio suffragiorum. A propos d’une réforme électorale de Caius Gracchus. Mélanges d’archéologie et d’histoire 71:145–210.

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Nicolet discusses a passage in Sallust’s second Letter to Caesar, in which he mentions an electoral reform by Gaius Gracchus. He reasons that Gaius permitted the centuriate assembly to vote not in the usual order, but in a random order, giving the poorer classes more influence; this would have enabled Gaius’s re-election for 122 BCE. Although Nicolet’s reconstruction is ingenious, Badian 1962 (cited under Bibliographies), with reason, dismisses this article as fundamentally wrong.

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Sherwin-White, Adrian N. 1972. The date of the lex repetundarum and its consequences. Journal of Roman Studies 62:83–99.

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Sherwin-White revisits the debate on whether the epigraphic lex repetundarum can be identified with Gaius Gracchus’s law reforming the extortion court; he concludes that it must indeed be Gaius’s law. It cannot be, as many suggest, a law of Glaucia of 106 BCE, since the lex agraria of 111 BCE was inscribed on the back of the tablet holding the lex repetundarum, which must therefore be older.

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Sherwin-White, Adrian N. 1982. The lex repetundarum and the political ideas of Gaius Gracchus. Journal of Roman Studies 72:18–31.

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Sherwin-White argues that the lex repetundarum serves excellently to illuminate Gaius Gracchus’s ideals. Throughout the text Gaius shows a preoccupation with the publicity of government and the careful formulation of laws, so that the scope for independent action by its enforcers is small. Sherwin-White argues that Gaius was not a radical reformer; the law did not invent new crimes, but made the punishment of existing crimes more efficient.

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The Agrarian Legislation
Gaius Gracchus, according to the sources, passed a law for land distribution, but very little is known about its contents. Hermon 1982 attempts to reconstruct it; Vanderspoel 1985 discusses its effects on the census figures. Livius Drusus, a tribune of the plebs supporting the Senate, proposed an alternative land distribution scheme, which apparently took away much of Gaius’ssupport, as Boren 1956–1957 argues. Much more is known about Gaius’s lex frumentaria, which made grain available at low prices to the urban poor; see Garnsey and Rathbone 1985 for the background of this law and Erdkamp 2000 for its aims. After Gaius Gracchus’s death, many of his laws were quickly overturned. Most attention has been given to the law (or laws) regarding land distribution, which were passed after 121 BCE. Appian mentions various laws, which eventually ended all distributions of land and privatized the land that had already been distributed. When these laws were passed and what they enacted, however, has been much debated, as has the relationship between these laws mentioned by Appian and the epigraphic lex agraria of 111 BCE. Various suggestions have been made in scholarly works like Badian 1964, Develin 1979, and Meister 1974. See most recently Roselaar 2010 (cited under Economy).

Badian, Ernst. 1964. The lex Thoria: a reconsideration. In Studi in onore di Biondo Biondi. 187–196. Milan: Giuffrè.

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Badian investigates the statement of Appian that a certain Thorius imposed a rent on public land that had been distributed by the Gracchi. He interprets this much-debated statement as meaning that Thorius was active in 119–118 and that he imposed a rent on public pasture land that was held in higher amounts over the limit set by Gaius Gracchus. (Also published in Studies in Greek and Roman history, 235–242. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1968.)

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Boren, Henry C. 1956–1957. Livius Drusus, t.p. 122, and his anti-Gracchan program. Classical Journal 52:27–36.

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Boren discusses the agrarian legislation of Livius Drusus, who, according to the sources, proposed to found twelve colonies. These were never established, Boren believes, but Drusus put forward other important innovations; for example, he abolished the rent that Tiberius Gracchus had placed on the distributed land, making it possible for their holders to sell the land.

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Develin, Robert. 1979. The dismantling of the Gracchan agrarian programme. Antichthon 13:48–55.

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Develin discusses in some detail the three post-Gracchan laws mentioned by Appian. He argues that the fifteen-year period in which the laws were passed ran from 133 to 118, and that therefore the epigraphic lex agraria of 111 was not one of three laws in Appian. The lex Thoria, he suggests ingeniously, was passed after 111, but should be ascribed to a Furius rather than a Thorius.

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Erdkamp, Paul. 2000. Feeding Rome, or feeding Mars? A long-term approach to C. Gracchus’ lex frumentaria. Ancient Society 30:53–70.

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Erdkamp argues that, with the increase in scale of Roman warfare, a more structured supply for the army and the urban population was needed. The aim of Gaius Gracchus was therefore to set up a more efficient supply chain for the city of Rome. In the long term, this would have positive effects on the recruitment of soldiers for the army.

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Garnsey, Peter, and Dominic Rathbone. 1985. The background to the grain law of Gaius Gracchus. Journal of Roman Studies 75:20–25.

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Garnsey and Rathbone investigate the volatility of grain prices in the late 2nd century, which varied because of the uncertainties with the import of grain to Rome. Especially in the 120s BCE, the slave revolts in Sicily caused problems. Gaius’s aim was to stabilize prices by ensuring that enough grain was imported to Rome to have a supply in stock, so that prices would be less influenced by short-term crises.

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Hermon, Ella. 1982. Le programme agraire de Caius Gracchus. Athenaeum 60:258–272.

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Hermon investigates the little we know about the agrarian laws of Gaius Gracchus, both with regard to land distribution and to the foundation of colonies. She discusses the legal aspects of the distributed land and the status of the colonists, and argues that the colonies were an important part of the “Romanization” policy in Italy and the provinces.

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Meister, Karl. 1974. Die Aufhebung der gracchischen Agrarreform. Historia 23:86–97.

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Meister investigates if any of the three post-Gracchan laws mentioned by Appian can be identified with the epigraphic lex agraria of 111 BCE, and whether one of them can be identified as a “harmful” law mentioned by Cicero. He concludes that the lex agraria is the third law of Appian, while Cicero’s “harmful” law is the agrarian law of Tiberius Gracchus himself.

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Vanderspoel, John. 1985. Gaius Gracchus and the census figure for 125/4 B.C. Echos du monde antique 29:101–106.

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Vanderspoel searches for an explanation for the rise in the census figure of 125–124 and discusses the various theories that have been proposed. He argues that Gaius Gracchus urged people to register, because he needed voters; to achieve this he had campaigned heavily in the countryside in 124 BCE. The censors had also been more active in registering citizens, in order to recruit voters against Gaius Gracchus.

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The Citizenship Legislation
A very important law of Gaius Gracchus concerned the granting of citizenship to the Latins and/or Italian allies, in exchange for them giving up ager publicus they held, which could then be used for distribution to poor citizens. Who exactly were the intended beneficiaries of this law—all Italian allies or only those of Latin status—is much debated. Hands 1976 argues that Gaius wanted to give citizenship to all Italian allies. Meister 1976 suggests that he wanted to give citizenship only to the Latins, and the right to vote to other allies, which is indeed more likely. An important recent suggestion in this debate has been made by Mouritsen 2006 and Mouritsen 2008, which suggest that the cives sine suffragio were the intended recipients of at least voting rights, if not full citizenship; this intriguing suggestion cannot, however, be fully accepted on the basis of the available evidence.

Hands, A. R. 1976. Land and citizenship, 125–122 B.C. Mnemosyne 29:176–180.

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Hands investigates the question of who exactly in 125 would have wanted to exchange land for citizenship—most likely only a few large holders of ager publicus. He argues that Gaius intended to give citizenship to the Italian allies in general; and that he intended to find the land necessary for so many new citizens by founding more colonies instead of distributing land in Italy.

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Meister, Karl. 1976. Die Bundesgenossengesetzgebung des Gaius Gracchus. Chiron 6:113–125.

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Against many other scholars, Meister argues that Gaius wanted to give full Roman citizenship only to Latins, while other allies would be given only the right to vote. This proposal failed, however, due to the resistance of the tribunes Drusus and Fannius, who convinced the Roman citizen voters that it was undesirable to share their privileges with the allies.

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Mouritsen, Henrik. 2006. Caius Gracchus and the cives sine suffragio. Historia 55:418–425.

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It has generally been assumed that the status of civis sine suffragio had disappeared some time before the Gracchan period, and that only full citizens, Latins, and allies still existed. Mouritsen argues, on the contrary, that there were still cives sine suffragio, and that Gaius intended to give them voting rights, but not full Roman citizenship.

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Mouritsen, Henrik. 2008. The Gracchi, the Latins, and the Italian allies. In People, land and politics. Demographic developments and the transformation of Roman Italy, 300 BC–AD 14. Edited by Luuk de Ligt and Simon J. Northwood, 471–483. Leiden, The Netherlands and Boston: Brill.

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Expanding his argument of 2006, Mouritsen argues that not all Italian allies received land from the Gracchi. Admittance of Latins and cives sine suffragio to the citizenship would solve the recruitment problem by increasing the number of available men for the army. This was acceptable to many existing citizens because of their long cultural association with Rome; admittance of other allies was not desirable and therefore not proposed.

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Death
Senatorial opposition to Gaius Gracchus eventually led to violence. When the consul Lucius Opimius convened a meeting to cancel the laws that Gaius had passed, supporters from both sides showed up armed. Although Gaius tried to avoid open violence, an attendant of Opimius was killed in a riot. The next day the Senate issued a Senatus consultum ultimum, which Golden 2013 expertly analyzes, authorizing Opimius to save the state from tyranny. Gaius and three thousand of his supporters were killed in the ensuing violence; Beness 2000 investigates the punishment some of his supporters may have suffered. Relatively little attention has been given to the motivations for opposition against Gaius’s politics, compared to the opposition against Tiberius, with Rowland 1969 a notable exception. Various scholars have studied the question of whether the death of Gaius and his supporters might have been the subject of tragedies performed in antiquity, with Wiseman 1998 and Beness and Hillard 2001 suggesting that this might have been the case. Keaveney 2003 is a needlessly negative response to these suggestions.

Beness, J. Lea. 2000. The punishment of the Gracchani and the execution of C. Villius in 133/132. Antichthon 34:1–17.

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Villius, a supporter of Tiberius Gracchus, was according to some punished with the poena cullei, being tied up in a sack with several animals and thrown in the river. Beness examines the history of this punishment and concludes that Villius may not have been punished in this way; nevertheless, a horrific sentence was necessary to strike terror in anyone thinking of following the Gracchan example.

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Beness, J. Lea, and Tom W. Hillard. 2001. The theatricality of the deaths of C. Gracchus and friends. Classical Quarterly 51:135–140.

DOI: 10.1093/cq/51.1.135Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »

This article investigates the possibility that Gaius Gracchus’s death was performed in tragedies, and that this theatrical treatment of events may have influenced the way that actual events were described in the sources, which were all written much later than the Gracchan period. The theme of friendship, in particular, is treated by many sources in a way similar to the treatment it received in the theatre.

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Golden, Gregory K. 2013. Crisis management during the Roman Republic. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.

DOI: 10.1017/CBO9781139507462Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »

In facing down Gaius, the Senate devised a new mechanism for confronting crises: the senatus consultum ultimum (SCU). This put power in the hands of the magistrates, giving them authority to tackle the crisis, which they did by killing Gaius and his supporters. However, the SCU did not stop normal legal process, so that a taint of murder still clung to the consul Opimius, who had led the opposition to Gaius.

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Keaveney, Arthur. 2003. The tragedy of Caius Gracchus: Ancient melodrama or modern farce? Klio 85:322–333.

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Keaveney gives an extremely negative review of the argument presented by Wiseman 1998. He argues that there is no evidence that the events surrounding Gaius Gracchus’s death were the subject of a tragedy. Although indeed there is no definitive evidence of the existence of a tragedy about Gaius, there is no need to be as venomous about the suggestion as Keaveney is.

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Rowland, Robert J. 1969. The development of opposition to C. Gracchus. Phoenix 23:372–379.

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Rowland investigates the political allegiance of the opponents of Gaius Gracchus. Some had been associates of both Aemilianus and the Sempronii, but had joined Aemilianus against the Gracchi; others had opposed Gaius from the start; others at first supported him, but abandoned him later. Many supporters deserted Gaius when it became clear that a moderate reform was impossible, and that radical change, which they opposed, was the only option.

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Wiseman, Timothy P. 1998. The tragedy of Gaius Gracchus. In Roman drama and Roman history. 52–59. Exeter, UK: Univ. of Exeter Press.

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Wiseman suggests that the death of Gaius Gracchus may have been the subject of tragedies performed in the theatre. Elements of the narrative in Plutarch may refer to stage sets used in such performances. The first performance of a play about Gracchus may have occurred at the ludi plebeii in 108, when Marius was consul for the first time.

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The Aftermath of the Gracchan Legislation
The Gracchan period was, already in antiquity, recognized as a watershed in the history of the Roman Republic. Various historical overviews of the late Republic have therefore taken the Gracchi as a starting point. Two recent books in German covering the period from the Gracchi to Sulla are Heftner 2006 and Linke 2005, both good introductions to the period; Linke 2005 is the most up-to-date with recent scholarship. Scullard 1959 is still often used as a textbook in courses on the late Republic and early Empire, but is very much out of date; for the period until 60 BCE, Mackay 2009 is a good up-to-date introduction.

Heftner, Herbert. 2006. Von den Gracchen bis Sulla. Die römischen Republik am Scheideweg 133–78 v. Chr. Regensburg: Friedrich Pustet Verlag.

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Heftner gives a basic overview of historical developments from Tiberius’s Gracchus tribunate until the end of Sulla’s dictatorship. His ideas on Tiberius’s land reforms are unfortunately based on traditional academic views (see Economy), rather than incorporating the most recent scholarship, but overall the work gives a good analysis of the effects of the Gracchan land reform and how it led into later political developments.

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Linke, Bernhard. 2005. Die römische Republik von den Gracchen bis Sulla. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft.

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Linke gives a clear overview of this interesting period in Roman history. In his discussion of the Gracchan reform, he goes into some detail on the technical and legal aspects of Tiberius’s law, and explains clearly the connection between the Gracchan land distributions and the resentment of the Italians, leading to the Social War in 91 BCE.

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Mackay, Christopher S. 2009. Breakdown of the Roman Republic: From oligarchy to empire. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.

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This overview of the history of the period 133–60 BCE is written especially for a general audience and undergraduate students, as illustrated by the “questions for study and reflection” in each chapter. It gives a very clear exposition of the importance of the Gracchi, although it does not really engage in academic debate. For the period until 60 BCE it is a good substitute for Scullard 1959.

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Scullard, Howard H. 1959. From the Gracchi to Nero. A history of Rome 133 B.C.–A.D. 68. London: Methuen.

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This is a general history of Rome, discussing political events and social and economic developments. Its start at the Gracchan period in itself indicates the importance that Scullard assigns them. Despite its age, it is still an often-used textbook for late Republican history, but since it does not incorporate the most recent academic views the period, it is by now of limited worth for academic research.

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The Lex Agraria of 111
A long, but fragmented inscription records an agrarian law dated to 111 BCE. In minute detail, it lays down rules on land owned by the state, i.e., ager publicus, in Italy and Africa, privatizing some of it and providing rules for the administration of the remaining public land. It is impossible to reconstruct the complete text, but its general contents can be reconstructed with a fair degree of certainty; the details have been the subject of intense debate, however. This law is the most important source we have for the administration and legal conditions of ager publicus from the late 2nd century onwards. It refers several times to laws relating to land issued by Gaius Gracchus, and although this does not allow us to reconstruct exactly what Gaius’s laws entailed, the lex agraria still provides some information about the scope of Gaius’s legislation about land. In the 1990s, two editions of this text appeared, Crawford 1996 and Lintott 1992 (on which see Mackay 1995); the Crawford edition is certainly to be preferred and should be considered the definitive edition of the text for some time to come. Earlier editions of and commentaries on the law still have many interesting points to offer, especially Hinrichs 1966 and Johannsen 1971. Sacchi 2009, although the most recent work on the lex agraria, should be used with caution.

Crawford, Michael H. 1996. Lex agraria. In Roman statutes. Vol. 1. Edited by Michael H. Crawford, 113–180. London: Institute of Classical Studies.

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This is the most recent edition of the lex agraria of 111. It contains a comprehensive bibliography, a history of the inscription, a critical edition discussing the various suggestions for the reconstruction of the text, a translation, and line-by-line comments on the law, including many technical and legal details. This is the starting point for anyone interested in the lex agraria.

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Hinrichs, Fokke T. 1966. Die Lex agraria des Jahres 111 v. Chr. Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung fur Rechtsgeschichte 83:252–307.

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Hinrichs does not give a full reconstruction of the text of the law, but discusses some aspects of it in detail, such as which land was distributed by the agrarian commission, the fate of its previous holders, the legal status of and taxation on the distributed land, lawsuits about public land, and the contents of the African section of the lex agraria.

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Johannsen, Kristin. 1971. Die lex agraria des Jahres 111 v. Chr. Text und Kommentar. Munich: private edition.

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This is a very detailed investigation of the epigraphic lex agraria of 111. Johannsen starts with a long introduction into the question of which one of three post-Gracchan laws mentioned by Appian may have been the epigraphic law. She then gives a line-by-line commentary on the epigraphic law, with many useful insights on the meaning of the text, revising many long-standing questions about the Gracchan program.

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Lintott, Andrew. 1992. Judicial reform and land reform in the Roman Republic. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.

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Lintott’s edition connected the fragments of the inscription in a different way than Crawford, but Lintott’s reconstruction turned out to be incorrect; therefore Crawford’s should be preferred. Despite the problems with the reconstruction of the text, Lintott’s long introduction on the history of ager publicus offers many valuable insights, and his discussion of the technical aspects of the law is of great value.

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Mackay, Christopher S. 1995. Review of Lintott, Andrew. Judicial reform and land reform in the Roman Republic. Bryn Mawr Classical Review 95.04.15.

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This review gives a clear and fair judgment of Lintott’s work, pointing out the various difficulties in Lintott’s edition of the text. These difficulties lie especially in the way the different fragments of the inscription were put together and the resulting reconstruction of the text, on which Mackay makes some important points of his own.

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Sacchi, Osvaldo. 2009. Regime della terra e imposizione fondiaria nell’età dei Gracchi. Testo e commento storico-giuridico della legge agraria del 111 a. C. Naples: Jovene.

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Sacchi gives a discussion on the economic problems of the 2nd century, unfortunately adhering mostly to the traditional picture, and then discusses the contents of the lex agraria in detail. He often reaches conclusions that have already been dismissed by other scholars and should be read with caution; nevertheless, many of his comments are still valuable. Also contains a reconstruction of the text, indicating the differences between various editions.

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Reception of the Gracchi
The use (and abuse) of the Gracchi as symbols for all kinds of political messages is one of the most interesting aspects of their history. The reforms of the Gracchi were widely recognized as a breaking point in the history of the Republic. On the one hand, this was the first time that tribunes of the plebs so blatantly disregarded the wishes of the Senate, and the first time that political discord had a great impact on the political process of the Republic and the economy of the Italian peninsula. This meant that the Gracchi brothers could be used for a variety of purposes: as examples of courageous champions of the people, who attempted to limit the greed of the rich; as examples of dangerous demagogues, who tried to make themselves tyrants and bring down the Republic; as brilliant orators, who swept the crowds before them; or as politicians with honorable goals, who were ultimately unsuccessful in their attempts at much-needed reform in the economy and politics of the Roman state. The first reception of Tiberius Gracchus was undertaken by his brother Gaius, who presented Tiberius in a very specific way in order to achieve his own goals—which were rather different from those of Tiberius. After Gaius’s death, the two brothers were mostly discussed as one entity, rather than as two different politicians. Already in Cicero’s time, many different representations of the Gracchi were available and could be used by politicians.

Ancient
The Gracchi had a large impact on the politics of the late Roman Republic. Their usefulness as role models was realized very quickly by politicians, including Gaius Gracchus. Santangelo 2005 is an excellent investigation into the way Gaius Gracchus managed to establish a semi-religious aura of piety around the gens Sempronia, based on his brother’s acts. A literary tradition quickly appeared around the Gracchi; already the Rhetorica ad Herennium of the early 1st century uses Tiberius Gracchus to create a very specific view on politics, as Martin 2005 demonstrates. Cicero used the Gracchi as he saw fit, either as an example of champions of the people or as radicals who endangered the Republic. Béranger 1972 is a good starting point for Cicero’s ideas on the Gracchi, although he perhaps presents Cicero as too positive about the Gracchi; Murray 1966 is more nuanced. Cicero also admired and emulated the oratorical practice of the Gracchi, as Narducci 2004 and Robinson 1994 show. Hermon 1992 explores how other politicians used the Gracchan agrarian legislation as a justification for the contents of their own laws.

Béranger, Jean. 1972. Les jugements de Cicerón sur les Gracques. Aufstieg und Niedergang der romischen Welt I. 732–763. Berlin: De Gruyter.

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Béranger argues that Cicero’s judgment on the Gracchi was generally positive: he admired their qualities as orators and statesmen, their family background, and their willingness to fight for the interests of the Roman poor. Cicero only regretted the illegal methods the Gracchi used to achieve their aims. However, depending on whether Cicero spoke to the Senate or to the people, his representation of the Gracchi could vary significantly.

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Hermon, Ella. 1992. La mythe des Gracques dans la législation agraire du IIer siècle av. J.C. Athenaeum 80:97–131.

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The Gracchi were used by various later politicians to achieve their aims. Sulla, for example, significantly altered the historiography of the Gracchan period, eliminating some episodes of violence. Others, such as Cicero, used the Gracchi as an example of politics gone wrong, in order to block other laws aiming to distribute land, or to exclude certain regions, such as the ager Campanus, from land distribution schemes.

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Martin, Paul M. 2005. Un exemple de demonstratio: l’assassinat de Ti. Gracchus dans la Rhétorique à Hérennius. In Demonstrare. Voir et faire voir: formes de la demonstration à Rome. Edited by Mireille Armisen-Marchetti, 85–96. Toulouse: Presses Universitaires du Mirail.

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Martin analyzes the description of Tiberius’s death in the Rhetorica. The depiction of Nasica’s activities shows several interesting aspects, such as an absence of terms that are usually used in writing biographies, the use of verbs indicating action, and a frequent use of polemical words and terms more suitable to the writing of tragedy. Thus the author of the Rhetorica manages to give his own view of events very effectively.

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Migliorati, Guido. 2000. Il Brutus di Accio e l’opposizione ai Gracchi. In L’opposizione nel mondo antico. Edited by Marta Sordi, 155–180. Milan: Vita e Pensiero.

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Migliorati agrees with Biliński 1957 (cited under Other Writers) that the theme of usurpation, which is prominent in Accius’s works, was a symptom of anti-Gracchan political positions. Accius introduced characters into his works, such as Servius Tullius and L. Iunius Brutus, who could be constructed as models for those opposing the Gracchi.

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Murray, Robert J. 1966. Cicero and the Gracchi. Transactions of the American Philological Association 97:291–298.

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Cicero’s judgment on the Gracchi was predominantly negative, as Murray argues, and was focused on their supposed attempts to take over power in the Roman state. However, Cicero saw some potential in both brothers, whom he considered great orators. Murray shows that Cicero adapted his judgment on the Gracchi according to his audience, presenting a positive view when addressing the people and a negative one when speaking to the Senate.

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Narducci, Emanuele. 2004. Cicerone e il ‘dilemma’ di Gaio Gracco. In Cicerone e i suoi interpreti: studi sull’opera e la fortuna. Edited by Emanuele Narducci, 215–226. Pisa: ETS.

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Narducci investigates a passage of Cicero, who quotes a speech of Gaius Gracchus in which he asks the rhetorical question of where to turn in his desperate circumstances. This was a well-known topos in ancient oratory; Cicero and other later orators employ it several times, probably directly inspired by Gaius.

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Robinson, Arthur. 1994. Cicero’s use of the Gracchi in two speeches before the people. Atene e Roma 39:71–76.

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Robinson argues that Cicero, in the De lege agraria and the Pro Rabirio perduellionis, uses the example of the Gracchi against the tribunes of the plebs whom he is attacking. By bringing to the people’s minds the horrors that occurred in the Gracchan period, he tries to turn the people’s opinion against agrarian reform.

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Santangelo, Federico. 2005. The religious tradition of the Gracchi. Archiv für Religionsgeschichte 7:198–214.

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This excellent article focuses on religious traditions that developed about the Gracchi, especially the story in which their father found two snakes in his house. Santangelo investigates the sources for these legends, arguing that they may have derived from Gaius’s own work. Gaius was eager to dispel accusations against his brother, e.g., of following foreign philosophy, and therefore presented his family as pious to the traditional Roman gods.

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Modern
The Gracchi had a large impact on later politics, although they were often used for purposes that were far removed from what they had themselves intended. During the French revolution, they were championed as heroes of the people; most notably, the French politician and journalist François-Noël Babeuf (b. 1760–d. 1797) called himself Gracchus Babeuf and represented himself as a champion of the people. His ideas included the abolition of private property and inheritance, and of national ownership of all large business enterprises; hardly proposals that either Gracchus would have advocated. Keaveney 1990 is a useful discussion of the impact of the Gracchi on Babeuf’s ideas. Rose 1978 and Legrand 1981 are good biographies of Babeuf, though neither has much to say about the Gracchan legislation and its exact influence on Babeuf’s ideas. The Gracchi were also used and abused as examples of popular champions in other parts of Europe, like Ireland, as Butler 2013 and Hall and Wyles 2013 demonstrate. During the American Revolution, the Gracchan ideas of land reform had less impact, since the primacy of private land ownership was undisputed. Nevertheless, debates on American slavery were influenced by the Gracchan period; the Richmond Enquirer published a Controversy between Caius Gracchus and Opimius: In reference to the American Society for Colonizing the Free People of Colour of the United States, written by William Henry Fitzhugh in 1827 (Available online] from the digital reproduction collection of the Library of Congress). Here, “Caius Gracchus” was pro-slavery and “Opimius” was against, a curious inversion of their historical positions (although Gaius Gracchus certainly did not oppose slavery as such, as pointed out by many). The starting point for the various ways in which the Gracchi were used in America is Malamud 2009. The Gracchi, especially Tiberius, are still occasionally used as examples of social revolutionaries; works by Marxist ancient historians indeed sometimes take this line. Modern Marxist websites (e.g., see online), present Tiberius as a popular champion in the same vein as later Marxist or communist activists, although scholarship does not support this interpretation. More superficial reception occurs in literature and film; note, for example, the senator named Gracchus in the 2000 film Gladiator (Ridley Scott, dir., DreamWorks and Universal Pictures), who attempts to re-establish a Republican government at the time of Commodus. Nevertheless, the Gracchi (either both together or individually) have received relatively little attention in popular culture, compared to figures such as Caesar or Augustus. There is so far, unfortunately, no popular book, film, or television series devoted exclusively to their story.

Butler, Sarah. 2013. Heroes or villains: The Gracchi, reform and the nineteenth-century press. In Classics in the modern world. A democratic turn? Edited by Lorna Hardwick and Stephen Harrison, 301–318. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.

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The enclosures of common land and the process of industrialization in England led to the formation of a large urban proletariat. In the early 19th century, this led to comparisons with the 2nd century BCE; those fighting for social reform were likened to the Gracchi, while the dangers and advantages of land reform were discussed with constant reference to the Republican situation.

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Hall, Edith, and Rosie Wyles. 2013. The censoring of Plutarch’s Gracchi on the revolutionary French and Anglo-Irish stages. In The afterlives of Plutarch Conference, 23–24 May 2013, Warburg Institute and the Institute of Classical Studies. Edited by Chris Pelling, John North, Judith Mossman, and Peter Mack. London: Warburg Institute.

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This article investigates the reception of the Gracchi in late 18th and 19th century France and Ireland. Several plays with Gracchan themes were written in this period, offering comments on current political issues and calling for a more egalitarian society. Many of these were censored; only after the French revolution and the Irish famine were plays with Gracchan themes allowed, although their messages were still contested by various political groups.

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Keaveney, Arthur. 1990. The three Gracchi: Tiberius, Caius and Babeuf. In La storia della storiografia europea sulla rivoluzione francese. Vol. 1. 417–432. Rome: Istituto storico italiano per l’età moderna e contemporanea.

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This article is especially useful since it investigates in more depth than other works the actual influence of the agrarian ideas of the Gracchi on François Noël Babeuf; many other works do not explicitly address how Babeuf used the ideas of the Gracchi for his own purposes.

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Legrand, Robert. 1981. Babeuf et ses compagnons de route. Paris: Société des études robespierristes.

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This biography of “Gracchus” Babeuf gives a general overview of the development of his ideas and his political career, focusing especially on the discussions he held with others about social reform. Unfortunately, it does not address the Gracchi themselves and the reasons why Babeuf chose to name himself after them.

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Malamud, Margaret. 2009. Ancient Rome and modern America. Malden, MA and Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.

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This is an excellent overview of the influence of Rome on the United States of America. Whereas the Founding Fathers had seen the Gracchi as dangerous revolutionaries, from the 1830s onward, they were represented as heroes who fought for the right of people to work their own land. They were also used in the slavery debate, while their mother Cornelia was a popular example of female virtue for American women.

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Rose, Robert B. 1978. Gracchus Babeuf: The First Revolutionary Communist. Stanford, CA: Stanford Univ. Press.

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This is a good general overview of Babeuf’s life and political ideology. Unfortunately, it says nothing about Babeuf’s views of the Gracchi and the reasons why he chose them as his role models.

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Rose, Robert B. 1984. The “Red Scare” of the 1790s: The French Revolution and the “Agrarian Law.” Past & Present 103 (May): 113–130.

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Rose investigates the influence of ancient Roman agrarian laws on ideas about land in the French revolution. “Agrarian law” had already become a byword for revolution by Cicero’s time. The term functioned as such also in the 1790s; anyone suggesting anything to do with land distribution was branded as a radical. Nevertheless, the Gracchi were used as examples (for good or bad) by various French writers of the time.