CHAPTER XIX.

CAIUS GRACCHUS TRIBUNE.

B.C. 123-121.

THE legislation of Caius Gracchus is one of the most perplexed subjects in the history of Rome. We know in a general way what he did and attempted to do, but the particulars are vaguely reported by such authorities as we have, and the authorities do not always agree.

In the first year of his tribunate Caius carried a Lex Frumentaria, the object of which was to supply the citizens of Rome with corn at a low price. It is sometimes said that the purpose was to relieve the poor only. This was probably the practical effect of the law; but as far as we know the terms of it, the law was general, and it affected to supply the people of Rome with corn at a fixed price, which was 63 asses the modius or about one-half of the usual price. The loss by selling below the market price, or what would have been the market price if the trade had been left to private enterprise, fell to the charge of the Aerarium or public treasury. When this system was fully established, it was necessary for the state to keep on hand a large supply of grain, and public warehouses called Horrea were built; and some in the time of Caius, as Plutarch reports. Such Horrea may have existed already, for we read of grain being kept in stock on the public account before the time of Caius.' But there is no authority for affirming that the Horrea named Galbiana and Aniciana in the Notitia were built by Caius. It is supposed that these Horrea were between the Aventine, the river, and the artificial hill named Monte Testaccio, but there is no trace of these storehouses now. At a later period

public Horrea were established in different parts of the Empire, and the remains of some of them exist with inscriptions which prove the purpose for which these buildings were made.

L. Calpurnius Piso Frugi, he who had carried the Lex de Repetundis, spoke against this Lex Frumentaria, and Caius replied to him in abusive language. When the law was enacted, Piso, though he had been consul, came to demand some grain at the low price which was fixed by the law. If this anecdote is true, it proves what I have suggested, that nominally it was a general law for fixing the price of corn, but that practically it was for the relief of the poor. Caius, while he was addressing the people, saw Piso in the crowd, and asked how it was consistent for a man to apply for corn after he had spoken against the Lex Frumentaria. "I should have been better content," said Piso, "if you had not chosen to distribute my property among the Roman citizens, but if you will do it, I shall demand my share." The meaning of the reproof was plain. Caius was distributing the public money.

This law then was no doubt intended for the relief of the poor citizens of Rome. The price of bread has been regulated at Paris with the same view. The law of Caius was a kind of poor-law. As its terms, we assume, comprehended all Roman citizens, any poor Roman citizen might have the benefit of it by removing to Rome, for the sale of corn at the rate fixed by law was only made in Rome, so far as we know. Every Roman citizen's name would be entered on the censors' lists at the last census, and it would only be necessary for a man to prove his identity in order to be entitled to such relief as the law gave. This law was well adapted to attract poor citizens from the country to Rome and to increase the number of Caius' partizans; and we may infer from this circumstance that it was one of the earliest as it was also one of the worst of his measures. Appian has certainly made a mistake in speaking of this Lex Frumentaria, when he says that "as soon as Caius was elected a tribune, he began his designs against the Senate by fixing a monthly allowance of corn to be given to every citizen from the public stores, a

thing which had never been used to be done before." The word which he uses for citizen (Snuórns) is an ambiguous expression in a Greek writer on Roman history under the empire; but perhaps he means any citizen, not a senator or eques, who chose to apply for the allowance. "The designs against the Senate" mean, if the writer meant any thing, that the object of Caius was to make himself popular. But the assertion that the corn was a gift is contradicted by all other evidence; and if it be said that the words which I have translated "from the public stores," do not necessarily signify "at the public cost," I would admit that it is so, but still the tenour of the whole passage seems to be that Appian thought that the corn was given. If he did, the mistake may be explained by supposing that he confounded the Lex Frumentaria of Caius with the later practice.

Plutarch, whom we must often use for want of a better authority, speaks thus of the legislation of Caius: "Of the laws which he promulgated with the view of gaining the popular favour and weakening the Senate, one was for the establishment of colonies and the distribution of Public Land among the poor; another provided for supplying the soldiers with clothing at the public expense, without any deduction on this account being made from their pay, and exempted youths under seventeen years of age from being drafted for the army; a third was in favour of the allies (Socii), and put the Italians on the same footing as the citizens with respect to the suffrage; another related to grain, and had for its object the lowering of the price for the poor; the last related to the Judices, a measure which most of all encroached on the privileges of the Senate, for the Senate alone supplied Judices for the trials, and this privilege rendered the Senate formidable both to the people and the Equites. The law of Gracchus added three hundred Equites to the Senate, who were also three hundred in number, and it made the Judices eligible out of the whole six hundred." Besides these measures some modern critics, relying on a passage in Sallust's letter (De Re Publica Ordinanda ii. 8), state that Caius carried a law by which the order of voting in the Comitia Centuriata was changed. The old practice was for the five classes to

vote one after the other. The first class voted first, and it had long been the practice to determine by lot which centuria of the first class should vote first. This centuria determined by lot was named Centuria Praerogativa or simply Praerogativa. The change introduced or proposed by Caius is supposed to have been this: all the Centuriae were to vate in an order determined by lot for each occasion, and thus the influence of the rich voters would be diminished. But this conclusion founded on an obscure passage of a spurious document, as many critics consider this letter of Sallust to be, should be rejected as not proved by sufficient evidence.

Plutarch has enumerated five laws which Gracchus promulgated or proposed. The fourth, about keeping down the price of grain for the poor, has been already considered. The epitomator of Livy says that Caius in his tribunate proposed several pernicious laws, but he mentions only three as proposed in the first tribunate, the law about the price of corn; an Agrarian Law, which was a revival of his brother's law; and a law about the Judices.

Plutarch states that this law about the Judices was carried, and that Gracchus was empowered "to select from the Equites those who were to act as Judices, which conferred on him a kind of monarchical authority, and even the Senate now assented to the measures which he proposed in their body." Livy's Epitomator goes further. He says, as it stands in the common text, that "the third law was made for the purpose of corrupting the Equestrian order, which at that time was in harmony with the Senate: the provisions of this Lex were that six hundred men out of the Equites should be added to the Curia, and because at that time there were only three hundred Senators, six hundred Equites should be mingled with the three hundred Senators; that is, that the Equestrian order should have twice as much power in the Senate."

Plutarch's description of the Lex Judiciaria cannot be accepted. It has been suggested that he confounded it with some other law, perhaps the subsequent law of Q. Servilius Caepio; though it would not be an exact description even of this Servilia Lex. The passage in the Epitome of Livy, as it stands, is pure nonsense, for it speaks of certain Equites

being made members of the Senate; but if this had been done, these Equites would then have been Senators instead of Equites, and this would not have been a measure to reform the Judices, but a measure to reform the Senate. If the words of the Epitome "in the Senate" (in senatu) are ejected conformably to one manuscript, the matter is still not set right, unless the words "in Curiam," that is, "into the Senate," are also altered into "in decurias;" which correction has been proposed. If we accept this correction of the text, we arrive at the conclusion that the reform of Caius consisted in adding six hundred Equites to the Album Judicum, or the list out of which the Judices were taken for the criminal trials which might be held. But all the authorities, except Plutarch and Livy's Epitomator, simply say that the law of Caius made the Judices eligible out of the body of Equites only, the wealthy class at Rome, and thus deprived the Senators of a privilege which they had hitherto enjoyed. It has been urged in favour of the statement in Plutarch and Livy, that practically the law of Caius put the office of Judex or juryman in the hands of the Equites; for if we assume in any given case, such as a trial De Repetundis, that the praetor made up the jury out of the list in the proportion of one Senator to two Equites, the Senators might be entirely excluded from the jury by the accused or the prosecutor exercising his right of challenge. But such attempts to explain what cannot be explained always end in some absurdity or contradiction. How could a third part of any jury list, a third consisting of a separate class of men, be so systematically excluded by the challenge that it could be truly said that Caius transferred the judicial power from the Senators to the Equites? But there is another and an unanswerable objection to this explanation. The trials De Repetundis, in which Senators had hitherto formed the jury, were trials in which members of their own body were the accused; and the alleged corruption of these juries was one reason why Gracchus attempted to reform the jury lists. If the reformed jury lists of Caius still contained some Senators, the accused in the trials De Repetundis would certainly not challenge