Even as he swept into an unheard-of and unasked-for second term as tribune,
Gaius Gracchus found the Senate resolutely set against him.
Even the man he helped become consul began to wane in support.
So, once again, he turned to the people, pushing two agendas he thought would win their favor.
But these two very acts would be the daggers that would be turned against him.
Facing the opposition of the Senate, Gaius proposed the establishment of new Roman colonies
to help ease the overcrowding in the city of Rome.
The urban poor would be given a new place to live with new opportunities,
and the population pressure on those who stayed in Rome would be eased.
But here the Senate met these laws with their old tricks.
When Gaius proposed they create two new colonies, the Senate decried him for pandering to the people,
before immediately going out and proposing to the people that they create twelve new colonies.
When Gaius proposed that some of the public land be given to the poor in exchange for a small amount of rent,
They accused him of currying favor with the people and not putting the interests of Rome first,
before immediately going out and proposing that some of the public land be given to the poor
without even requiring they pay a token rent.
And their agent heading up this effort, one Livius Drusus, knew that Gaius was the sort of person who
had to keep his hand in things and administer all of his own projects.
So, Livius always appointed other men to lead the projects Gaius had originally proposed,
helping to convince the people that, unlike Gaius, he was never acting for his own benefit or aggrandizement.
And so, when a project to colonize the old site of Carthage came up
and Gaius took up the task of adminstering it, Drusus and the Senate saw their chance.
They turned to the people and started fueling their fears over Gaius's other major proposal
that the Italians living outside of Rome be given citizenship.
And they convinced even the poor, against their own best interests,
to fear losing what few privileges they had if this outsiders were given citizenship.
So by the time Gaius returned to Rome, the tide had been turned against him.
The people were opposed to his plan of integrating the Italians,
and they now felt that they had another champion supporting their cause.
Gaius was no longer alone in simply offering the people whatever they wanted in return for political support,
and so the people no longer needed him. He needed to do something to get them back on his side.
He immediately moved out of his quarters in the rich district of the Palatine Hill,
and moved to the slums, near the Forum.
He tried again to offer more populist reforms
but most of his major points had already been acted on by the Senate.
And when those looking for citizenship came to Rome to support him,
the consul, the very man Gaius had supported, put out a decree expelling from Rome anyone who wasn't Roman by birth
and forbidding them to enter the city while the voting went on.
Gaius instantly proclaimed that he would defend anywho stayed to support him,
but, even when one of his close friends was being dragged off to prison, he did nothing,
perhaps afraid that he could do nothing, and worried about what would happen when the world found out.
Needing to do something to make a comeback, he started to take more direct action.
One of the other tribunes was organizing gladiatorial games
and had constructed box seats for the rich that blocked the view of the poor.
Gaius ordered these seats taken down, and when that order was ignored,
he grabbed a bunch of workmen the night before the games and tore it down himself.
Soon the time for elections came again,
and now Gaius was determined to push for a completely unbelivable third term.
Whether due to his proposal for Italian citizenship or interference and vote tampering from the tribunes,
he just barely lost.
Down from being the most powerful and loved man in Rome, he was back to being a private citizen.
But he wouldn't go quietly. Oh No! Not without one last threat to the tribunes.
He began whipping up the people, telling them that the system was rigged against him,
crying out to all who would listen about how unfairly he'd been treated.
But he was powerless now.
Even as he did this, the Senate started putting together proposals to repeal all of his reforms.
So Gaius began to gather a mob. On the day of the repeal, he would lead them down to the capital.
And the day came. Both factions were arrayed.
The traditional sacrifices were made and, as the entrails were being carried off,
one of the senatorial faction insulted Gaius's men and told them to stand aside.
Instantly he was set upon and stabbed to death.
The crowd began to panic. Gaius began to rebuke them for giving his enemies such an opportunity
but, seeing what had happened, the senators simply gloated, knowing what had fallen into their hands.
Then the rain began to pour and the panicked crowd began to disperse.
But the next day the Senate declared martial law.
Supporters of Gaius gathered and, while Gaius himself withdrew to his home with sorrow,
one faction of his supporters spent the night working themselves up for a riot.
When dawn broke on the following day, Gaius and his supporters,
as well as the armed faction which supported his cause, went and occupied the Aventine Hill.
The Senate, armed and surrounded by their supporters, met them there.
An envoy was sent out, an offer of peace was made,
but the leader of the senatorial faction demanded that Gaius and his closest allies give themselves up,
and only then would they talk of mercy.
Gaius considered doing so, but no one else was willing, so they sent back the envoy.
The senators arrested him and started to march on the mob.
Archers from the senatorial faction began to shoot into the crowd.
Some fought, many fled in terror. Gaius fled, but he was caught.
Alone, except for one slave, no horse or wagon to carry him, the party of the Senate overtook him in a grove.
Some say that he had his slave take his life, others say that he was executed.
What is known is that, because he had been declared that anybody who brought the head of Gaius Gracchus
would be rewarded with its weight in gold, one of his pursuers cut off his head
and, before he took it back, hollowed it out, removed the brain, and poured in molten lead in its stead.
His body, as well as the bodies of many of his followers, were thrown into the Tiber.
Those who lived had their property confiscated, faced exile or even execution.
And the leader of the Senate built a temple to Concord, mimicking the actions taken to commemorate
when the Plebeians and the Patricians were reconciled after the Secession of the Plebs.
But that very consul who slew Gaius Gracchus will someday himself be found guilty of corruption.
And on the very walls of the temple of Concord will be carved the words
'this temple of Concord is the work of Mad Discord'
The reforms of the Gracchi were often right and necessary, but democracy is a fragile thing.
Extreme faction, fearmongering, subverting the needs of the State to whatever's politically expedient at the moment,
democracy doesn't survive these things.
Introducing a rhetoric of violence, substituting the letter of the law for its spirit,
democracy can't survive these things.
Less than a century after Gaius falls, so too shall the Republic.