by
iroabuchi onwuka
Juvenal describes “Rome is supported on Pipe Stems match
sticks; it’s cheaper thus for the landlord to shore up his ruins, patch up the
old cracked walls, and notify all the tenants. They are expected to sleep
secure through the beams are about to crash above them.”
That Plebs and proletariats, “has no standing in
court…Men do not easily rise whose property hinders their merit.” this remained
the case in Rome till the 2nd century –B.C when more lands were
acquired by Roman Citizens and war veteran. The tribunes were appointed to
deputize on their behalf and Roman Senators were in central position to question
some of the more daring petition over.
According to Michael Parenti, “In 121, in response to
Gaius’s initiatives, the Senate passed what was later called the Senatus
Consultum utimum, a decree that allowed for a suspension of republican rights
“in defense of the defense.” It gave magistrates license to discharge
absolutist power, including political repression and mass murder.”
“After repeated threats against his life, Gaius and 250
supporters including another popularis, Fulvius Flaccus, were massacred by the
Optimates’ death squads in 121 B.C. These assassins then rounded up and
summarily executed an additional 3000 democrats. The victims’ relatives were
forbidden to mourn publicly for the dead.”
With the increase of population, it was a question of time
that Rome began to expand the Agrarian laws between 121 B.C – 111 B.C. Rome
entered period of street fights and blood baths and according to Cicero, and
the people could not tolerate the ‘King-like power’ exhibited by Tiberius Gracchus
and by consequent others such as his brother Gaius Gracchus and Flavius Flacca.
Using a similar argument by Michael Parenti, he noted that
popularity led to street fights and it was the optimates and the people who
backed Rome sought to remove by sword or by prinile thus in the words of Otto
Kieter…”Gracchi perished in furious street fighting”
“That the Senatus consultum ultimum was used to cut down
Gaius Gracchus and thousands of his followers” that, that some of the
legislative intent of Gracchi was riddled with reforms that stepped on the
privileges of the few.
It was his understanding as well many that the age of Rome
following a hundred years of wars with Samnite was a society politically and
religiously divided and direct military and autocratic leadership was
necessary.
Thus the faith of the young
empire depended on this very premise of a collective and oval office and a Maximus
Pontiff as elected by the people of Rome.
Parenti marginalized this view by citing an alternative
reason that the so-called highest law was ‘often
a cloak for the lowest deeds.’ In the next ten years, the selective process
and the reform perpetrated a decade earlier brought Lucius Saturninus to an
end, following long spells of disagreement and fights in the street.
P.A Brunt interpretation of Gracchi reforms was that the
division created problems of stability and the Senate had little power over the
mobs and middle men and the reforms was a disregard for the magistrate but on
the premise that “…the highest law was
the public safety’ and perhaps nothing more.
The Eastward expansion of Rome to Africa and Asia Minor
swelled the number of poor and placed people, whose lands were collateral for
the survival of the Senate. It soon fetches problems for Rome and it was
tethered against the wish of the State towards Civil war as earlier as 120
B.C.
But these were popular lives and not military men, local
champions with long held family values – some with some military or war
experience and other not - including Sulpicius Rufus who dies in 88 B.C during
next City-wide bloodshed.
The question that we may not likely ask is if the Gracchi reforms
were a form of ‘endangerment’ to the old established society or that the power
of few who held Rome in its balls were threatened?
Or could the reforms of
Tiberius and those of his brother, Gaius, considered a threat to Roman ancient
regime and therefore placed Senate and the magistrate under unusual conditions?
Or was it some it something else, that Gracchus saw a future
that demanded the central authority – perhaps no necessarily a dictator who
would direct the affairs of the State and who’s birth will coincide in lesser
affairs of Rome in 100 B.C, a decade after the death of Gaius
In the words of Michael Parenti, the pressing needs for land
reforms, housing authority, agrarian and grain reforms was in the end between
121 B.C and 111 B.C could not have force the reaction from the public saving
for the reason that Tiberius Gracchus was not only the leader of Roman Society,
that his rules were initiated for his good and perhaps in the name of good and
goodwill for Rome.
Prove of this was the public reception of military
politician Gaius Marius and one of the great Roman general – perhaps
responsible for the spread of Rome’s influence in the East - Lucius Cornelius
Sulla.
But as more Plebs entered Rome and more lands confiscated
abroad, the State experienced bigger problems of control, and some of the older
families could not held accountable for any deeds performed against the State.
The other issue which was not expected was the presence of
military veteran from the East, who were now resident in Rome, who participated
in Roman politics and goodwill but whose lands were appropriated by less
members of the Senate – especially among totally corrupt families that Agrarian
land policies.
Tiberius Gracchus - The Elder – father to Tiberius S.
Gracchus and Gaius Gracchus – was historically believed to have taken a side
against one of the two Sons of Scipio – one was Scipio Africanus who is badly
said to have gotten his name from the continent which he conquered.
But this is not far
from the tree, since Africa was and is still an Island in what is now Tunisia
and the story the connection of Publius Cornelius Scipo to Cornelia Africana
more than sealed the support of Tiberius Gracchus, and impresses that the
reason for the opposition against Hannibal and Cartage was the problem of
Rights and Responsibility.
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