>>>>The expansion of the Roman Republic in the 2nd century BC brought in its train enormous
social transformations that would have unintended political consequences. We've seen how the
Bacchanalian conspiracy, the anxiety about this kind of religious movement, underground
religious movement, is part of this gradual change in Roman society. The consuls, in a
sense fear what they can't control in this urban environment, where there are nighttime
religious festivals that have allegedly foreign influences come from Greece. That's part of
the social changes--religion is one dimension. We want to consider the economic dimensions
of the transformations in 2nd century Rome, and the consequences of economic change for
the political crisis of the Republic. And we'll do so through the eyes of one of the
great figures of late republican politics, Tiberius Gracchus. The career of Tiberius
would represent the beginning of a new, acute phase of crisis within the republican system,
and it's precisely because of his political ideas and his ideas for a land reform that
the Republic will enter a period of outright political violence that would ultimately lead
to the end of the Republic itself. Tiberius was born into the wealthiest strands of the
Roman aristocracy, from the elite of the elite. The Roman aristocracy of this period is a
military aristocracy. They're a wealthy, traditional set of families, all of which compete with
each other for military commands. And so the sons of the aristocracy in this world serve
as military officers. And Tiberius was serving as a military officer and returning from a
campaign in Spain when he traveled down the coast of what's now Tuscany, then Etruria,
a most important region to the north of Rome. And as he traveled along the coast road, looking
inland at the land that he saw, and he could visualize almost in a flash in the image that
he could see there off the coast, the problems that faced Roman society. For he witnessed
not a landscape carved up into small farms, but a landscape dominated by enormous, slave-staffed
villas. Tiberius could see these large villas owned by the aristocracy of Rome that controlled
huge amounts of land, that were stocked with slaves who performed the agricultural labor
to produce commodities, above all wine, that then could be sold in foreign markets, bringing
enormous wealth to the Roman elite. And in that image of this landscape carved up into
enormous slave plantations that didn't allow the small farmer who was the traditional backbone
of the Roman Republic to flourish, Tiberius sensed the fundamental problems that would
face the Roman Republic for the rest of its history. And these problems that Tiberius
sensed were at the heart of all of the changes of the 2nd century: the urbanization of Rome,
the growth of slavery, the expansion of markets, the opportunities to make enormous wealth
off of commerce, and that it changes within the military, all of which would contribute
to the demise of the small farmer. Tiberius wasn't content simply to watch this transformation
undermine his Republic, and he conceived a brilliant political reform that would try
to turn back some of these changes and would restore the small farmer--the backbone of
the Republic. Tiberius ran for office and became a tribune in the Roman Republican system.
Now the tribune was a very particular office within the Roman system of magistrates. By
this time, there were ten tribunes elected annually. And the tribune had a very specific
function in the Roman Republican Constitution. A tribune was a defender of the common person.
The tribune's role in the Republican Constitution was to protect the ordinary man, and the tribune
had exceptional powers that allowed him to do so. The tribunes were sacrosanct.
They were absolutely protected in their person, in their safety, because they had to be willing
to stand up for ordinary people, sometimes against powerful interests. The tribune's
powers included above all the veto--the ability to say, "I prohibit this legislation from
being enacted." So the tribune had the fundamental power to say no, to stand in the way of changes
that would harm the ordinary Roman citizen. And the tribune would use these powers to
protect the interests of the common man. And so Tiberius, although from one of the bluest
blood families in all of Roman society, became an officer whose role was to protect ordinary
Romans -- and he did so on a very particular platform. He ran on an idea of land reform,
what we can call the Tiberian land reforms. Tiberius proposed to rehabilitate an ancient
law, the Licinian law that was passed in 367 BC, so we're talking about a law that's 200
years old. This law said that no individual then can own over a certain amount--500 jugera
is about 40 family farms, it's a very significant amount of land--of ager publicus, of public
land: A particular kind of land that was classified within the Roman legal system, land that had
been conquered by the Roman armies. Tiberius says, in effect, I am going to enforce this
obsolete, ancient law that's more than 200 years old that limits the upper size of properties,
landed properties, on a certain classification of land. There were certainly many estates
owned by the Roman aristocracy that far exceeded this scale of landholding. It would be like
if we found a law that was 200 years old, so imagine a law that was passed in the presidency
of George Washington, that had fallen into desuetude that said something like, "No individual
can own more than 100 acres" or "No individual can own more than say $500,000," maybe that's
a better a way of estimating it. But today that would seem very small, and that must
of been something that like the way the Roman aristocracy reacted to the reforms of Tiberius.
That he had found this ancient law that was technically on the books but was largely obsolete,
and intended to enforce it so he would set upper limits to the size of their properties.
Well, what this amounted to was a seizure of properties, and we have remnants of the
kinds of debates that happened in the context of his proposals. The aristocrats said, "We've
owned this property. We've occupied this property. We've improved this property. We've invested
capital to improve this land. This has been our home. Our ancestors' tombs are on this
land, and you're simply going to seize it by enforcing some obsolete law?" But the small
farmer had a different kind of case. Imagine the veteran saying, "This is public land,
this is land that was conquered by the Roman armies, the armies that ordinary citizens
and soldiers, such as myself, had served in." Tiberius proposed to take the land that he
was going to redistribute and give it to small farmers, especially veterans--men who had
served their republic in the army, to give it to poor people, to ordinary people. And
so the land reform that he proposes has a very profound class-based impact. The wealthy,
the aristocrats who own large tracts of land, oppose this kind of reform and see it as an
egregious act of theft, of the state stealing their land and redistributing it. The small
farmer sees it as a wise, republican reform, sees it as a way for the Republic to revitalize
itself, to give what is due to those who have served in the Roman army. Tiberius is brought
into office on this platform, but he faces immediate opposition, in fact, opposition
from one of his colleagues, one of the other tribunes, who also has the veto power and
who represents the interests not of the common man, but of the wealthy, senatorial aristocracy,
and who begins to use his veto power to block Tiberius's efforts to redistribute land. There's
a certain irony in this that another tribune, who should be acting in the interests of the
common Roman, uses his powers to block the land reforms of Tiberius. Tiberius is furious
and he makes every maneuver he can to try and overcome his opponent, to try and dissuade
him. He, in fact, takes extreme measures. He practices what we would consider a government
shutdown. He begins vetoing every single act of every single magistrate in the Roman Republic,
shutting down the entire system of government. And when his colleague still refuses to budge,
Tiberius proposes an unprecedented action. He proposes that his colleague, his fellow
tribune, be impeached, be turned out of office because he's failing to protect the interest
of the common man. This is a radical and unprecedented act, and it scared even Tiberius's own supporters,
who realize that if the tribune could be thrown out of office that it would set, in fact,
a dangerous precedent that would undermine the office of the tribune in the long run.
Because then it meant that a tribune taking unpopular action could simply be turned out
of office. Nevertheless, Tiberius was intent, and he had his colleague thrown out of office.
And he then stood unimpeded, and was able to begin enforcing his land reforms. Tiberius
and his brother and another ally begin to carry out their land reforms. And we know
that already in this year, 133 BC, that his land commission is taking action to redistribute
land. But as the year progressed his progress was continually impeded by the Senate, who
didn't wish to see his land reforms carried through. And as the year reached its end,
so would Tiberius's tenure as tribune, and Tiberius knew that if he was no longer tribune
that first his land reforms would be undermined, and that secondly, he himself would be in
grave danger. No longer protected by the office itself, he would probably be a likely target
of political violence. And so Tiberius took another extraordinary act. He ran for reelection
as tribune, again violating tradition within the Roman Republican Constitution. And as
Tiberius campaigned for reelection this time, the campaign itself became clouded by an atmosphere
of violence. His opponents, especially the wealthy senatorial aristocracy, accused him
of aiming at tyranny. They accused him of taking unprecedented actions, having his colleagues
thrown out of office, having himself reelected beyond his term, so that he could redistribute
land. In the eyes of the aristocrats, he was a dangerous demagogue. But to his own constituency,
the common people of Rome, he was a hero. His reelection campaign was marked by an air
of increasing violence, and on the day of the election itself, Tiberius went into the
heart of Rome and where he was surrounded by a mob of people. Another group of senators
meeting on the other side of Rome set out across the city and came to Tiberius and slew
him, killing him, spilling blood in the streets of Rome. Tiberius was assassinated by a band
of senators who claimed to be acting in the name of republican liberty, in the name of
the constitution. Who claimed the be acting against a dangerous demagogue, who had broken
precedent time and again to carry out his reforms. Tiberius claimed to be acting in
the interest of the common man, to be upholding the values of the Republic against the wealthy
interests that were undermining it. The career of Tiberius Gracchus above all proves how
fundamentally important it is within a republic, a res publica, to maintain a community of
interest. The career of Tiberius Gracchus teaches this lesson: That when the interests
of different elements of society are so divergent that they lack the ability to form a consensus,
that violence becomes possible. And the assassination of Tiberius Gracchus was the beginning of
a new and more violent period of Roman politics.