Hello everybody. We are super excited today
to have Mike Duncan writing a guest episode for the show.
He is the creator of the History of Rome podcast,
which partly inspired the very first episode of this show ever,
and the incredible Revolutions podcast, which you should absolutely check out
as he's going over the life of Simón Bolívar in far more detail than we ever could.
Even though, incidentally, we will be covering Simón Bolívar
in a couple of months ourselves.
Anyway, big thank you to Mike for writing this episode.
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In the five episodes we just made about the Gracchi brothers,
we only briefly mentioned their father twice.
Now this is understandable,
as his sons have come to overshadow him in the eyes of History,
But in his own time, this guy had one of the greatest political and military careers imaginable.
Understanding him is key to understanding the sons who wanted so badly to follow in his footsteps.
So let's dive into the life of this elder Gracchi and the profound effect he had on his sons.
Tiberius Gracchus the Elder was born just as the the second Punic War drew to a close.
He first stepped onto the stage of history in 190 BCE in the midst of the Seleucid War,
which was being waged by the consul, Lucius Cornelius Scipio,
with assistance from his brother, the legendary Scipio Africanus.
Gracchus was described by Livy as "Far and away, the sharpest young man of that time."
The Scipio brothers clearly felt the same
since they entrusted him with a vital mission.
They needed him to secure safe passage for the legions
as they marched across the Hellespont in pursuit of King Antiochus of Syria,
and Tiberius Gracchus delivered.
The troops marched safely, Antiochus was defeated,
and the Scipios won yet another great victory on behalf of the advancing Roman empire.
With Antiochus defeated, the Scipios remained in the East
to arrange a final political settlement.
During that process, they also served as a clearinghouse
for huge sums of money passing every which way.
In addition to the piles of plunder won during the war,
The brothers managed disbursements from Rome to cover legionary expenses,
and were all too willing to accept bribes from local kings looking to secure Roman goodwill.
By the time their work in the East was done, the brothers had frankly made out like bandits,
and this landed them in pretty hot water when they returned home.
Despite the fact that the Scipio brothers were now multiple times over the saviors of Rome,
they found themselves charged with corruption.
But, luckily fo them, just as charges were being brought,
that same promising young Tiberius Gracchus was elected Tribune of the Plebs.
And just as the trial was set to begin, Gracchus vetoed the procedings.
A Tribune's veto was absolute. To the Scipios' great relief, the trial was stopped dead in its tracks.
No doubt as a gesture of thanks for saving their hides,
Scipio Africanus arranged a marriage between Gracchus and his daughter Cornelia.
She was not only one of the most eligible bachelorettes in Rome but an amazing woman in her own right.
This was as advantageous a marriage as an ambitious young politician could land.
Gracchus was a rising star and he meant to make the most of it.
When he was elected Aedile in 182, he aimed to make his name known far and wide
by throwing the most lavish set of public games anyone had ever seen.
And he succeeded. His games were in fact so ridiculously lavish
that the Senate passed a law restricting the amount of money that could be spent on games in the future.
Gracchus, now well known, well connected, and much beloved by the people,
was then elected Praetor in 180 and assigned to the province of Nearer Spain.
There he would make his greatest mark. See, for the better part of the generation,
the Celtiberians of Nearer Spain had been in revolt against the encroaching Romans.
Gracchus turned that lengthy impasse right around with a fresh campaign that struck wide and hit hard.
Later, he would claim to have sacked 300 different cities during his campaign;
granted Gracchus's definition of what qualifies as a city was broad enough
to include lonely watchtowers and small collections of huts. But still.
But more important than his conquest, was Gracchus's subsequent peace settlement.
The Celtiberians were in revolt largely because they'd been left insecure and landless by decades of turmoil in Spain.
So Gracchus took it upon himself to gather the poor together into a community and distribute lands to them.
And it worked. It was as much this redistribution of land as the Roman military might
which secured peace in Nearer Spain for the next 25 years.
Since the story of Gracchus the Elder's legendary exploits in Spain
would have been told to his sons, Tiberius and Gaius, time and time again,
it's little wonder that redistribution of land became so central to their own radical reform efforts down the road.
And of course Gracchus the Elder's successful settlement is THE reason his son Tiberius
was the only man the Numantines would discuss terms with years later when they trapped the legions of Gaius Mancinus.
For his service in Spain, Gracchus justly received a triumph when he returned home.
He was also promptly elected Consul in 177,
but he secured this position by playing a dangerous game in the world of elite family rivalries.
You see, in Rome they always elected two consuls to serve at the same time.
And you would generally want your co-consul to be somebody you got along with,
like, say, someone from your wife's famous and powerful family.
But Gracchus's partner in the consulship was not one of his Scipio in-laws, but Gaius Claudius Pulcher,
leader of the ancient and venerable Claudii familiy, who just happened to be major rivals of the Scipios.
Gracchus walked a very narrow political tightrope by attaching himself to the Claudii.
Really, it was major accomplishment that he managed to thrive while playing the great senatorial families off of each other.
A lesser man would have wound up with a long knife lodged in his back.
But his back remained knife free. And now he had alliances with two of the most powerful families in Rome.
He was no longer dependent solely on the Scipios to keep building his power and influence,
and his alliance with the Claudii was built to last.
Their sons would be staunch allies in the land reform struggles to come, with a young Appius Claudius
serving as Tiberius Gracchus the Younger's legislative partner and principal backer in the Senate.
Riding high off of his political victory at home. Gracchus approached his military assignment as consul
with a swagger in his step.
He had been assigned to protect the people of Sardinia from a pair of rebellious tribes.
So he waged a sharp campaign just like he had in Spain and brought peace back to the island.
So, just as in Spain, the Gracchi name was also honored in Sardinia.
Remember when we talked about Gaius going to the people of Sardina
and imploring them to donate clothes to the soldiers during that harsh winter?
Well, his words carried extra weight with the people that day, thanks to the memory of his father.
For his services in Sardinia Gracchus was subsequently awarded a second triumph,
which was a nearly unprecedented feat in those days.
Gracchus then proceded on to his next prestigious accomplishment:
he was elected Censor for the year 169, sharing office once again with his old consular colleague Gaius Claudius Pulcher.
After his term as censor, Gaius joined the traveling embassy of senators on a trip through the eastern Mediterranean.
Their job was to assess the status of the varius client kingdoms,
and Gracchus wrote a glowing endorsement of the Attalid dinasty of Pergamum.
This forged a permanent friendship between the Attalids and the Gracchi.
There's a reason Tiberius the Younger was later able to pounce so quickly when word arrived that
the king of Pergamum had died and willed the kingdom to Rome.
Tiberius heard about the will before the Senate did
because the ambassador bringing the news literally stayed in his house.
Again, we see the work of Tiberius Gracchus the Elder flowing directly to the events of 133.
A few years later Gracchus achieved yet another remarkable feat winning a second consulship in 162.
But here he sowed a far mor negative seed for his sons.
At the end of his term, Gracchus oversaw the election of the next year's consuls.
Every election was also supposed to be overseen by an augur, who, in keeping with Rome's ancient traditions,
observed the flight of the birds and announced whether or not the gods approved of holding a vote that day.
But on this election day, Gracchus ignored the augur's warning about inauspicious omens,
at least until he found out who won. Then he hastily claimed to have messed up part of the ritual
and that the newly elected consuls must resign, or the gods would be mad.
One of the two men screwed out of his consulship was Publius Scipio Nasica Corculum.
Remember when Tiberius was trying to get re-elected tribune
and the senators were in a frenzy over Tiberius's power plays
and trying to get the consul to do something about it, but the consul refused,
and then that one senator leapt up to his feet and said:
'since then the chief magistrate betrays the Senate, do ye who wish to soccur the laws follow me?'
and then led the violent attack which killed Tiberius and his followers?
That guy was Publius Scipio Nasica Serapio, the son of the man Gracchus the Elder had once screwed out of a consulship.
I will leave it to you to determine where political ideology leaves off and personal grudges begin.
At the close of his second consulship, the now supremely eminent Gracchus
joined yet another traveling embassy working its way through Greece and Asia.
On his trip, Gracchus made further contacts and forged deeper bonds with foreign clients,
whose wealth and influence could be called upon to help the familiy's political agenda back in Rome.
See, the thing to understand is that, when he finally retired from public life in the 160's,
Tiberius Gracchus the Elder was not just another prominent senator,
he was quite literally one of the most powerful man in Rome.
Any Roman politician who won a single consulship or who had been awarded a single triumph
could retire justly proud of a great political career. Tiberius won two consulships and had been awarded two triumphs.
And he was not just linked to a powerful family, he lived at the intersection of the greatest families in Rome.
And on top of that, he was miles ahead of his contemporaries on developing extensive foreign client networks,
which allowed his family to dip into the wealth and power of the provinces.
The Gracchi name was now spoken across the empire with respect, deference, and allegiance.
As he settled in to begin raising a family, Tiberius Gracchus the Elder was nothing less than a living legend.
In the world of elite Roman politics you always aimed to at least match the feats of your ancestors
and hopefully do then one better.
For Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus this would have been a daunting assignment.
The weight of their father's accomplishments must have weighed heavy on their minds,
and I think the looming question of 'how on earth do we surpass the fame of our father?'
is an underappreciated motivating factor behind their subsequent conduct.
But, amazingly enough, they did surpass the fame of their father.
Which is why they got five episodes and dear old dad's incredible life is reduced to one measly prequel.
But his life echoes through the history of Rome,
not only for the feats he performed or for the sons he bore,
but for the very way he viewed the provinces and the model of foreign clients.
He may not have created this model, but he certainly demonstrated to everybody watching
how it could forever change the power structure of Rome.