Civil Wars

After Gracchus was slain Appius Claudius died, and Fulvius Flaccus and Papirius Carbo were appointed, in conjunction with the younger Gracchus, to divide the land. As the persons in possession neglected to hand in lists of their holdings, a proclamation was issued that informers should furnish testimony against them. Immediately a great number of embarrassing lawsuits sprang up. Wherever a new field had been bought adjoining an old one, or wherever a division of land had been made with allies, the whole district had to be carefully inquired into on account of the measurement of this one field, to discover how it had been sold and how divided. Not all owners had preserved their contracts, or their allotment titles, and even those that were found were often ambiguous. When the land was resurveyed some owners were obliged to give up their fruit-trees and farm-buildings in exchange for naked ground. Others were transferred from cultivated to uncultivated lands, or to swamps, or pools. In fact, the measuring had not been carefully done when the land was first taken from the enemy. As the original proclamation authorized anybody to work the undistributed land who wished to do so, many had been prompted to cultivate the parts immediately adjoining their own, till the line of demarkation [*](B.C. 132) between them had faded from view. The progress of time also made many changes. Thus the injustice done by the rich, although great, was not easy of ascertainment. So there was nothing but a general turn-about, all parties being moved out of their own places and settled down in other people's. [*](Y.R. 625)

The Italian allies who complained of these disturbances, [*](B.C. 129) and especially of the lawsuits hastily brought against them, chose Cornelius Scipio, the destroyer of Carthage, to defend them against these grievances. As he had availed himself of their very valiant services in war he was reluctant to disregard their request. So he came into the Senate, and although, out of regard for the plebeians, he did not openly find fault with the law of Gracchus, he expatiated on its difficulties and held that these causes ought not to be decided by the triumvirs, because they did not possess the confidence of the litigants, but should be turned over to others. As his view seemed reasonable, they yielded to his persuasion, and the consul Tuditanus was appointed to give judgment in these cases. But when he took hold of the work he saw the difficulties of it, and marched against the Illyrians as a pretext for not acting as judge, and since nobody brought cases for trial before the triumvirs they relapsed into idleness. From this cause hatred and indignation arose among the people against Scipio because they saw him, in whose favor they had often opposed the aristocracy and incurred their enmity, electing him consul twice contrary to law, now taking the side of the Italian allies against them. When Scipio's enemies observed this, they cried out that he was determined to abolish the law of Gracchus utterly and was about to inaugurate armed strife and bloodshed for that purpose.

When the people heard these charges they were in a state of alarm until Scipio, after placing near his couch at home one evening a tablet on which he intended to write during the night the speech he intended to deliver before the people, was found dead in his bed without a wound. Whether this was done by Cornelia, the mother of the Gracchi (aided by her daughter, Sempronia, who was married to Scipio, and was unloved and unloving because she was deformed and childless), lest the law of Gracchus should be abolished, or whether, as some think, he committed suicide because he saw plainly that he could not accomplish what he had promised, is not known. Some say that slaves, who were subjected to torture, testified that unknown persons were introduced through the rear of the house by night who suffocated him, and that those who knew about it hesitated to tell because the people were angry with him still and rejoiced at his death. So died Scipio, and although he had been of immense service to the Roman power he was not honored with a public funeral; so much does the anger of the present moment outweigh gratitude for the past. And this event, sufficiently important in itself, took place as an incident of the sedition of Gracchus.[*](It is uncertain whether Scipio was murdered or not. Cicero alludes to the event in one of his letters (Ad Fam. ix. 21), in which, speaking of one Gaius Carbo, he says that he was thought to have laid violent hands upon Africanus. Velleius says that marks of strangulation were found on his neck, yet adds in the same paragraph that most people thought he died a natural death.)

Those who were in possession of the lands even after these events postponed the division on various pretexts for a very long time. Some thought that the Italian allies, who made the greatest resistance to it, ought to be admitted to Roman citizenship so that, out of gratitude for the greater favor, they should no longer quarrel about the [*](Y.R. 629) land. The Italians were glad to accept this, because they [*](B.C. 125) preferred Roman citizenship to possession of the fields. Fulvius Flaccus, who was then both consul and triumvir, exerted himself to the utmost to bring it about, but the Senate was angry at the proposal to make their subjects [*](Y.R. 630) equal citizens with themselves. For this reason the attempt [*](B.C. 124) was abandoned, and the people, who had been so long in the hope of acquiring land, became disheartened. While they were in this mood Gaius Gracchus, who had made himself agreeable to them as a triumvir, offered himself for the tribuneship. He was the younger brother of Tiberius Gracchus, the promoter of the law, and had been silent for some time on the subject of the fate of his brother, but since many of the senators treated him scornfully he announced [*](Y.R. 631) himself as a candidate for the office of tribune. [*](B.C. 123) As soon as he was elected to this distinguished position he began to lay plots against the Senate, and proposed that a monthly distribution of corn should be made to each citizen at the public expense, which had not been customary before. Thus he got the leadership of the people quickly by one measure of policy, in which he had the coöperation of Fulvius Flaccus. Directly after that he was chosen tribune for the following year, for in cases where there was not a sufficient number of candidates the law authorized the people to choose from the whole number then in office. [*](Y.R. 632)