Free From the Gracchi to Nero: A History of Rome from 133 B.C. to A.D. 68 by H. H. Scullard Page B

Athenian pattern, but mob-rule or dictatorship. Tiberius may not have been aware of the latent implications of his actions, but he does seem to have sought sufficient personal leadership in the interests of his land reform scheme, to render plausible, if not true, the charge of his opponents that he claimed that ‘interempto senatu omnia per plebem agi debere’. To Rome’s great loss the plebs were not capable of responding adequately to such a call. Instead, the Senate responded with force and thus set in motion the series of civil wars in which the Republic perished.
    5.  THE LAND COMMISSION, SCIPIO AEMILIANUS AND THE ALLIES
    The Senate pressed home its advantage: it set up a court under the consul of 132, P. Popillius Laenas 17 and his more attractive colleague P. Rupilius, to punish more of Gracchus’ surviving supporters. Many were condemned and executed: those that escaped were banished without trial. Of Tiberius’ Greek friends Diophanes was killed and Blossius fled to join Aristonicus’ revolt in Asia (p. 33). Despite this display of strength the Senate decided that, since Nasica’s continued presence in Rome would remind men of his violation of the sacrosanctity of a tribune, he was better out of sight: he was therefore sent on a commission to Asia, where he soon died. The Senate, however, did not interfere with the working of the agrarian commission, a fact that demonstrates that its objection to Tiberius’ bill was much weaker than its dislike ofhis methods. Tiberius’ place on the commission was taken by Gaius Gracchus’ father-in-law, P. Licinius Crassus, but as consul in 131 Crassus secured by intrigue a command in Asia, where he died in 130; Ap. Claudius, the other triumvir, also died. Their places were filled by M. Fulvius Flaccus and C. Papirius Carbo, who, together with Gaius Gracchus, remained in office until 122. As tribune in 131 (or 130) Carbo carried a measure to extend secret ballot (cf. p. 20) to legislative assemblies of the People and proposed one to legalize re-election to the tribunate. Scipio Aemilianus, who was back from Spain after sacking Numantia in 133, helped to defeat the proposal, though a similar measure possibly was carried soon after his death in 129. 18 The turbulence of the times was reflected during the censorship of 131, when this office was held by two plebeians for the first time in history; a disgruntled tribune tried to push the censor Q. Metellus Macedonicus over the Tarpeian Rock, from which condemned criminals were hurled. More memorable perhaps was Metellus’ speech ‘de prole augenda’, an appeal to enforce marriage and thus increase the birth-rate; he was clearly conscious that Rome’s economic difficulties required reform, though his solution was on different lines from that of Gracchus.
    Meantime the commissioners were hard at work, asserting the State’s claim to the extra
ager publicus
and distributing it to new settlers. 19 But difficulties arose, especially where the interests of the Latin and Italian allies were involved. Already exasperated by Rome’s recent treatment of them, those allies who had been allowed to occupy
ager publicus
in the past would not now enjoy having to surrender any surplus they held in order to provide allotments for the unemployed from Rome, while disputes may have arisen with the commissioners over the title to borderland where land originally taken from the ally by Rome ran alongside land retained by the ally. 20 To air their grievances they sought the help in Rome of Scipio Aemilianus who as a soldier knew the true value of the allied contribution to Roman life. In 129 their new patron persuaded the Senate to warn the commissioners not to deal with disputes about land held by the allies; such cases should be transferred to the consul Tuditanus, who conveniently went off to Illyricum. 21 But the distribution of land went on: the census figures of 125 B.C. (about 395,000) were some 75,000 higher than those of 131 B.C., and