Tribunatus Populusque Romanus

By:Patrick McMahon History Honors Thesis Advisor: Dr. Kathryn Williams 11/17/2014

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Table of Contents

Introduction..........................................................................................................................3

Scholarly Tradition..............................................................................................................5

Background Information......................................................................................................9

Tiberius Gracchus..............................................................................................................14

Gaius Gracchus..................................................................................................................20

Sullan Constitution............................................................................................................29

Publius Clodius Pulcher.....................................................................................................32

Conclusion.........................................................................................................................38

Bibliography......................................................................................................................45

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Introduction

The People and the Senate of Rome were in a constant struggle for political power from

133 B.C.E. to 44 B.C.E. This power struggle between the two groups was a recurring conflict

throughout Roman Republican history, but the end of the Third Punic War in 146 B.C.E. brought

that conflict to the forefront of domestic politics. The office of Tribune of the Plebs, created in

494, was the primary representative of the Roman People, while the Senate of Rome was the

primary representatives of the Roman patrician class. The Roman tribunate was a powerful

institution that benefited the Roman People and resulted in the holders of that office, with the

garnered support of the constituents whose interests they represented, challenging the traditional

authority and power of the Senate. Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus, and Publius Clodius Pulcher are

exemplary tribunes who used the support of the people to challenge the Senate, and show how

the office could hold so much influence in the late Republican politics. The popular policies that

these three tribunes advocated for proved to the aristocracy that with the backing of the people,

the tribunate could wield immense political power in Rome. The symbiotic relationship between

the late-republican tribunes and the Roman People was a powerful political reality that served

not only as a primary factor in the destabilization of the republic but also as a crucial model in

the establishment of imperial Rome.

This paper will examine Roman politics and government in a more “democratic” manner

that tries to understand the relationship between the Tribune and the average Roman citizen, and

how the aristocracy then tried to imitate this relationship. Certain tribunes, like the ones

discussed in this paper, realized that the people of Rome had the potential for immense political

power. A model tribune, like either of the Gracchi or Clodius, persuaded the citizenry of Rome

into supporting their policies and opposing the policies of other politicians, most notably

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members of the Senate. Plebeian Tribunes held and wielded the power of the people, and

understanding the office and the men who held that office is crucial for scholars to fully

understand the politics and the power of the tribunate.

The tribunate had a great deal autonomy, and power in Roman politics. A lot of the

scholarship, however, does not focus specifically on the tribunes because many historians have

seen them as agents of the aristocracy. Tribunes such as Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus, and

Publius Clodius Pulcher, however, were not pawns in a great game of chess played by the elite

but rather independent politicians who used their connections with the people to accomplish their

objectives and legislative programs, often at the expense of the patricians. The legislation passed

by the tribunate was meant to relieve the plight of the people, and to become popular among the

citizenry. This popularity allowed these tribunes to expand their influence and power. These men

are remembered as populares, or popular politicians, because their relationship with the people

benefitted both the holders of the office and the average citizen. Tribunal legislative programs

included land reform, fixing the price of the grain supply, and judicial reforms that protected and

even empowered the people.

The Gracchi and Clodius used complex and sophisticated political maneuvers to secure

the passage of their most radical legislation as well as to prevent rival tribunes from opposing

their programs. The three men discussed in this paper were either assassinated or executed during

their term as tribune or as a result from their legislation which was too radical and too popular

for an aristocracy that feared losing their control over Rome. Tribunes had to rely on political

networks of plebeians, both urban and rural, and their skill of oratory to persuade the people of

Rome to their causes. The tribunes also needed to have an understanding of inter-tribunal politics

so that the other tribunes did not obstruct their legislation through the use of the veto. The ability

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to maneuver Republican politics and pass legislation that often directly challenged the elite show

that the tribunes influenced the plebeians by understanding their interests, furthering their

political standing, and bettering the lives of the Roman people. With the support of the people the

tribunes were in a position that could not be ignored by the Senate.

Scholarly Tradition

The scholarly tradition has shifted from viewing the relationship between the people and

the oligarchy from the perspective of the oligarchy to a more democratic understanding. Ronald

Syme in his book, The Roman Revolution, argues that the Senate and the Republic were

suffering from structural weaknesses that lead to the decay of both. The Roman Revolution

discusses Augustus’s rise to power through personal political connections.1 Syme is aware and

appreciative of the power of the individual in the late Republic, but dismissive of the power of

the individual tribune. Clodius, the only tribune discussed within this paper who lived in the

period Syme wrote about, is a minimal figure in the work. The Roman Revolution is a history of

the Roman aristocracy. Syme argues that the triumvirate of Crassus, Pompeius and Caesar, and

certain influential members of the Senate were the most important men in Rome and the shapers

of the Empire. He does not focus on popular politics or the office of tribune, because to Syme

they were issues that were separate from the major concerns of aristocracy.2 Syme does not

consider the continued success of popular tribunes and their effect on the aristocracy, as shown

by Sulla’s curbing of powers of the tribune. Syme also does not consider how this continued

success inspired the aristocracy namely Pompeius, Caesar, and Augustus, to seek popular

support.

1 Ronald Syme, The Roman Revolution, (Oxford: Claredon Press, 1939), Kindle edition. 2 Syme, Roman Revolution.

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Erich Gruen whose book, The Last Generation of the Roman Republic, is often described

as a response to Syme, does recognize and discuss the popular politics in Rome in the years from

about 70 to 44 B.C.E., the last three decades of the Republic.3 Gruen’s main argument is that

Rome was a functioning government in a state of change, rather than the state of disrepair that

Syme had argued. He views tribunes, such as Clodius, as men who had questionable motives, but

who were effective reformers. Even though Gruen recognizes the legislation and programs of

popular tribunes, and their relationship to the people, he does not believe that they posed any real

threat or challenge to the power of the Senate and the aristocracy. Gruen viewed real power in

Rome as controlled first by the Senate then by the triumvirate, and ultimately by the emperor.

There is within the scholarly tradition a school of thought which dates back to the ancient

sources that has recognized that Rome was at the very least a partially democratic society in

which the citizenry possessed real political power. Polybius wrote in his Histories, that Rome’s

government was superior to any in Greece because it was a conglomerate of the three

governments that were present in Greece. Rome incorporated elements democracy, aristocracy,

and monarchy into their government. The legislative and electoral roles of the citizen are the

aspects of a democracy, while the auctoritas (Highest moral authority) of the Senate was present

in Greek aristocracies, and the power of the consul was reminiscent of a monarchy.4

Scholarship drifted away from this assessment and it began to see the magistrates and

Senators as members of the same class of people who were able manipulate the citizenry into

forfeiting all their power. The first modern scholar to challenge this claim and argue that Rome

was a city with real democratic power and institutions, like the tribunate, was Fergus Millar.

Millar argues in, The Crowd in the Late Republic, is that the constitution of the Roman Republic

3 Erich Gruen, The Last Generation off the Roman Republic, (Berkley, CA: University of California Press, 1995). 4 Polybius, The Histories of Polybius, translated by W.R. Paton, (Cambridge, Ma: Harvard University Press, 1922) Book IV.

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was undeniably a direct democracy.5 This argument is ultimately false. Rome was not a direct

democracy especially in the years leading to the rise of the Empire. Nevertheless, Millar’s work

is important because he argues for the importance of popular politics in Rome. Millar remains an

important scholar for starting a debate that is still at the forefront of modern classical Roman

scholarship.

The historian Henrik Mouritsen has followed Millar and tries to determine the actual

amount of power that the people had in the Republic. Mouritsen in his book Plebs and Politics in

the Late Roman Republic, examines not only at the participation of the people, but at the

political institutions that were available for them to participate in. Mouritsen’s determination of

which plebeians participated politically and what their motivations for that participation were are

central to his argument. The institution that he examines in most detail is the contio, the informal

non-voting magisterial business assembly, and he argues that popular politicians, like the

tribunes, used these meetings to persuade the people to back them and their legislation.

Mouritsen ultimately concludes that the majority of the people did not participate in politics and

that only wealthy merchants had the incentive and the time to attend the numerous contiones

called each week, or spend an entire summer day going to a voting assembly. The reason why the

majority of the plebeians did not actively participate was that they had to work as laborers or

shopkeepers, and could not abandon work to pursue their political interests.6

Robert Morstein-Marx is another historian who has written about the people’s role in

politics but with a focus on how the use of oratory in the contio influenced plebeian

participation. Morstein-Marx wrote extensively about the role of the contiones. His book, Mass

Oratory and Political Power in the Late Roman Republic, examines public discourse between

5 Fergus Millar, Crowd in Republic, (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1998).6 Henrik Mouritsen, Plebs and Politics in the Late Roman Republic, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), Kindle Edition.

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politicians and the people and how these two groups interacted with each other. The book

examines how the oligarchical and the democratic aspects of Roman politics came together and

interacted with each other in the contio and how the skill of oratory was at the heart of this

interaction. Morstein-Marx argues that it was oratory that was the most important skill for

anyone in the political sphere to have and that the better a politician was at orating, the more

power that politician could attain.7

There was a struggle for power between the people and the patricians in Rome, a struggle

in which both sides experienced times of strength and times of weakness. This paper examines

an office, the tribunate, often at the epicenter of this power struggle, and the ways individual

tribunes used political assemblies like the concilium plebis, or the contio to their advantage.

Understanding the relationship between the tribunate and the people during that conflict is

critical in understanding how the tribunate used the people to strengthen the office and at the

same time benefit the plebeians. The three tribunes that are examined in this paper are three

popular tribunes. There were more conservative, more aristocratic tribunes who supported the

Senate, but the popular tribunes were all successful in expanding the power of the plebeians,

through greater political participation, and increasing the number of the citizenry. The success of

these three tribunes in expanding the power of the people expanded their own power and

weakened the authority of the Senate. The potential of tribunician power, and the success would

ultimately lead to Augustus assuming the power of the tribunes during his consolidation of power

as emperor.

7 Robert Morstein-Marx, Mass Oratory and Political Power in the Late Roman Republic, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), pg. 1-35.

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Background- Roman Politics and Government

The office of Tribune of the plebs was created in the 494 B.C.E. When the Republic was

established in 509, every magistracy was open to only the patrician class. The word patrician

comes from the Latin word patres literally meaning fathers, but referring to the Senators in a

political context because they advised the king during the Roman monarchy, and were

traditionally seen as the fathers of Rome. English words like patriarchy and patriotism, or names

such as Patrick all stem from the word patres. These patricians dominated Roman politics both

foreign and domestic in the early Republic. During that period, the plebeians had no recourse of

action or an avenue to bring about grievances against the patricians. After years of the patricians

ignoring the domestic needs of the plebs, and constant war with neighboring city-state, what is

now known as the first secession of the plebs occurred.8 The plebs saw that their only course of

action for political reform was to physically withdraw from the city, and settled on the Sacred

Mount just outside of Rome; to show the patricians that without a large number of plebs in the

city Rome was weak. Fear among the patricians soon spread throughout the city that with no

plebeians to serve in an army, Rome was vulnerable to foreign forces. The patricians sent a

wealthy and highly regarded plebeian, Menenius Agrippa, to begin negotiations that would

ultimately result in the creation of the Tribune of the Plebs.9

The secession of the plebs would result in granting political power to the plebeians for

the first time in Roman history. In 493 the people and patricians agreed that the plebeians would

have their own assembly known as the concilium plebis, and their own office known as the

Tribune of the Plebs. The concilium plebis would meet once a year on the Sacred Mount, and

barred patricians from participation. The tribunate was created to protect the people from the

8 Titus Livius, The History of Rome: Books 1-5, translated by Valerie M. Warrior, (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 2006), Book II. 9 Livy, History of Rome, Book II.

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consuls and the Senate, and so senators, and patricians were barred from holding the office.10

The office was sacrosanct, no tribune could be physically harmed during their term. The tribunes

were given the power to veto legislation passed by the Senate if they felt that the law opposed the

will of the plebeians. Livy, in Book II, is unclear in how many tribunes were elected in the first

year. Livy claimed that two tribunes were elected and three more were appointed, but states that

some other scholars claim that only two men and not five became tribunes.11 The office,

however, would continue to grow in number, eventually there were ten annually elected tribunes,

and in power, the tribunate would gain more influence and power in legislation, over the course

of centuries.

The tribune’s greatest power, made officially into law by the Lex Hortensia in 287,

allowed them to bring a bill to the concilium plebis that if it passed became a law that applied to

every citizen of Rome.12 These laws were known as plebiscites, and all the laws discussed in this

paper will fall under this category of legislation. The plebiscite did exist, unofficially, in Rome

before the Lex Hortensia, but now that power was written into law and applicable to every

Roman citizen, patricians included. The plebiscites is what transformed the tribunate from a mere

annoyance for the patricians into a viable rival political office. The power of the veto was now

applied to both tribunal and Senatorial legislation, and when a tribune chose to exercise this

power to his own and to the people’s own advantage is instrumental in understanding the office

and how the men who occupied that office operated.

The Tribunate did have its limitations. The annual term limit made it difficult for tribunes

to continue their legislation once their term ended. After a tribune’s year in office there was no

guarantee that their laws would not be repealed by a new tribune. Furthermore, a tribune could

10 Livy, History of Rome, Book II. 11 Livy, History of Rome, Book II. 12Mary T. Boatwright, Daniel J. Gargola, Richard J.A. Talbert, The Romans from Village to Empire: A History of Ancient Rome from Earliest Times to Constantine, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 62-63.

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not physically remain outside of Rome for more than twenty-four hours. This physical limitation

would make it difficult to travel to other parts of Italy to meet with citizens who lived outside

Rome, and to be able to understand their needs. Another limitation to consider is that the

tribunate was not an office held by a single man, but by a group of men. This could pose a

challenge for a tribune to pass legislation because he would have to cooperate with nine other

men who had their own agendas, popular and conservative alike, and could use their power of

veto at any time. It was imperative for a tribune not only to be able to control the people, but to

control his fellow tribunes as well.

Roman citizenship was the most coveted form of civic identity in the Mediterranean

world by the last century B.C.E, and people would take up arms to acquire it13 From the time of

the tribunate of Gaius Gracchus in 123 until the end of the Social War in 88 B.C.E., the privilege

of citizenship would be fought over both in the political arena and on the battlefield. Roman

citizenship was not confined to the city of Rome, and many Latin towns under Roman control

were either granted citizenship or were Roman colonies that were established with citizenship.

Partial citizenship was also granted automatically to manumitted freedmen.14 These freedmen

along with every urban citizen and some provincial citizens had the ability to exercise the most

important aspect of Roman citizenship, the right to vote. Votes elected magistrates, and decided

on tribunal legislation. Finally male Roman citizens, besides freemen, had the right, and the duty

to serve in the military, and also the ability to run for and serve as magistrates, and as senators.

Tribunes, like Gaius Gracchus, attempted to spread Roman citizenship to more people

throughout Italy. If a tribune was able to accomplish granting provincial citizenship then they

strengthened their office in two ways, firstly the number of plebeians increased giving the class

13 Catherine Steel, The End of the Roman Republic, 146 to 44 B.C: Conquest and Crisis, (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2013), 35-41. 14 Boatwright, The Romans, 150.

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greater political power and the tribunate more responsibility, and secondly the number of loyal

grateful supporters to that specific tribune also increased.

The Roman Republic had a complex and intricate political system that provided

democratic rights to all of its citizens, but the Senate tried to manipulate most of that power for

their own control. Political power was inconstant contention in Rome between the patricians and

the plebeians. The plebeians gained more political influence in the 3rd century B.C.E. when they

gained the ability to hold magistracies and thus be elected to the senate.15 By the time the

Gracchi held their tribunates two new political classes had emerged in Rome. The Nobiles, or

the Senatorial and magistracy holding patrician and plebeian families, and the equites, or Roman

knights, but in reality were the wealthy plebeians who amassed their wealth through business

like trading rather than agriculture.16 The rest of the plebeian held political rights, but economic

and social reasons, such as running of shops, or day laboring, prevented them from pursuing

these rights. The two new classes would be influential in the rise of popular politics in the late

Republic, the Gracchi and Clodius were all members of Nobiles families, and their status

provided them with legitimacy. It was the equites who supported the tribunate politically.

The concilium plebis was the only assembly of the four existent in Rome that was not

open to the entire citizenry but only to the plebeian class.17 The tribunes would propose bills and

conduct any official business they had with the plebeians in the concilium plebis.18 The

concilium plebis would meet on the Sacred Mount, in honor of the first secession of the plebs

and the creation of the tribunate, to conduct business without any interference from the patricians

and the Senate. It was in the concilium plebis that tribunes would draft plebiscites and the

plebeians would vote to pass or reject these laws. Plebeians in the concilium plebis were allowed

15 Livy, History of Rome, Book IV. 16 Mouritsen, Plebs and Politics, Kindle. 17 Shotter, The Fall of Roman Republic, (London: Routledge, 2005), Kindle Edition. 18 Shotter, Fall of Roman Republic, Kindle.

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to express the greatest amount of political power they had in the Roman government because of

their ability to legislate for the entire empire with complete freedom from aristocratic

interference. The power of the plebiscite within the concilium allowed the tribunate to pass

legislation that garnered the support of the people, expanded their own power, and challenged the

authority of the Senate with impunity.

The other important setting for the Tribunes to sway the opinion of the plebs was the

contio. The contio was an informal assembly that any magistrate could call to address the people

of Rome directly.19 Contiones were called to bring about charges against a person, to discuss

proposed legislation and why it should be enacted, or any other matter the magistrate thought it

important for the people to assemble.20 Tribunes retained their popularity by addressing the

people directly, or cross examining rivals in front of the Roman people. Contiones allowed the

tribune to remain relevant in Roman politics outside the concilium.

Success and popularity for tribunes in the contio was dependent on their skill of oratory.

How impassioned and persuasively a tribune could address Rome’s citizens had a direct

correlation on how successful and popular that tribune was and how much power they held in

Rome. The Gracchi and Clodius were all noted orators and their ability to hold the attention of a

crowd, and their ability to persuade and influence that crowd gave provided them with the source

of their power. The contio provided the tribunes with a mob, and with that it created a mob

mentality and the man who how to inspire and control that mentality held the power of the

people. The only way for a tribune, or any politician for that matter, to inspire and control the

contio was by mastering the art of oratory and being able to speak more convincingly than any

rival who also wished to control the people.

19 Henrik Mouritsen, Plebs and Politics, Kindle. 20 Morstein-Marx, Mass Oratory, 3.

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The Office of Tribune was the servant to the Roman people, and many tribunes worked to

improve the lives of the plebeians. This work came at a cost to the aristocracy though and that

cost was to weaken the power the Senate held over Rome, and also to expand the power of the

Office of Tribune. Tribunes, such as the Gracchi and Clodius, believed in the power of the people

and the need for the backing of the people. They believed that the more power the plebeians held,

the more power they individually held and with that power the tribunate could circumvent and

even limit the power of the Roman aristocracy. Because of the continued success of the tribunate

in limiting the power the Senate, that Augustus assumed tribunal powers to secure autocratic

power in Rome and ultimately limited the power of the Senate.

Tiberius Gracchus

The election of Tiberius Gracchus to the tribunate in 133 B.C.E. would bring Rome into

an era of increased popular power. Tiberius, a son of a former consul of Rome and a maternal

grandson of Scipio Africanus, the hero of the Second Punic War, was not the first popular tribune

in Roman History, but his term as tribune revived a popular movement that would last until

Augustus assumed imperial power. Tiberius, as tribune, promoted and carried through a program

of reform that benefited the people of Rome over the wealthy elite. In Livy’s Ab Urbe Condita,

Livy spends a large portion of the first five books treating the relationship between the tribunes

the people, and between the tribunes and the patricians. Livy writes about the extensive history

of tribunes stirring up trouble in Rome by drafting land bills.21 Land bills were land redistribution

legislation, and in a pre-industrial society, land redistribution meant wealth redistribution, which

the patricians mostly certainly did not want, but the people did.22

21 Livy, History of Rome, Books I-V. 22 Livy, History of Rome Books I-V.

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In 133 B.C.E. a 29-year-old Tiberius Gracchus, without consulting the Senate, proposed a

land bill directly to the concilium plebis that would redistribute the ager publicus, the public

lands that Rome had amassed as a result of the Punic Wars.23 Italy was suffering. The three

Punic Wars had left many citizens impoverished and without land. The Roman Army which had

a property requirement had trouble recruiting troops and the wars had decimated their numbers.

The Punic Wars drastically increased the number of slaves present in Rome and the economy

soon became dependent on slaves. The patricians were able to manipulate what land the Republic

considered ager publicus, publicly owned land, and ager privatus, privately owned land, and

because the land had never been surveyed and defined the patricians who owned land in rural

Italy were able to assume public land as their own.24 The ager publicus that was promised to

veterans and citizens alike in theory, was controlled by the patricians in reality. Many of the

patricians that controlled the land were also members of the Senate and so the bill had two

purposes, gain the support of the landless rural citizens of Italy, and challenging the wealth of the

patricians. It seems that Tiberius may have considered the fact that with less land in their

possession the elite could not afford to have so many slaves, and thus producing a large

population of manumitted freedmen with the right to vote.

Tiberius’s land bill established a three-man land redistribution board that would consist of

himself, his 20-year-old brother Gaius, and his father-in-law Appius Claudius. The bill allowed

for landowners to own only a certain amount of land, which was then further limited in matters

of inheritance. The landowners had to prove to the board that they controlled as much land as

they said they did, and what land they could not account for was confiscated from them. The

board was able to determine what land was claimed as ager publicus and how that ager publicus

23 Plutarch, “Tiberius Gracchus,” Roman Lives, translated by Robin Waterfield, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 88. 24 Andrew Stephenson, Public Lands and Agrarian Laws of the Roman Republic, (Baltimore: John’s Hopkins University Press, 1891). E-Book, Chap.2, Section 11.

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was redistributed to the citizenry. One familia was accountable for the entire land redistribution

and all the credit and praise from the people would go to the Gracchi.

The Senate attempted to reign in the influence and the power of Tiberius among the

people by attempting to have rival tribune Marcus Octavius veto the legislation of Tiberius.

Octavius was considered a friend of Tiberius, and even after many wealthy men were able to

convince the hesitant tribune to oppose his ally, their debates were focused on the issues and

never resorted to ad hominem attacks. Octavius’s motive for betraying Tiberius was that he own

enough land that the law would have a direct effect on him and his holdings. Tiberius was so

unwilling to let any obstruction happen to his bill that he had Octavius expelled as tribune. This

feat was accomplished by having the concilium plebis vote Octavius out of office because

Octavius had acted in the interest of the Senate, and opposed the will of the people and therefore

was no longer fit to hold the office of the Tribune of the Plebs. After Octavius had been expelled

from his office, the land bill was immediately passed.25 The notion to expel a tribune from office

was completely unprecedented, but over the next century occurred with greater frequency as

corruption saturated the Republic. The threat of expulsion could be used against a Senate backed

tribune like Octavius, and weakened the Senate’s position to indirectly influence the concilium

plebis.

Tiberius soon passed another bill that was revolutionary in expanding the power of the

tribune. This bill came as a result of his land bill and the challenges that arose from his attempt to

enforce the bill. The Senate, whose backing of Octavius shows that most of its members opposed

the land bill, did not grant any public funds to support it. Senators opposed the bill because

Tiberius had passed it without the consultation and advice from the Senate and that many

Senators would be targeted if the bill possessed any real power. They essentially made the

25 Plutarch, “Tiberius Gracchus,” 92-93.

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redistribution board, the enforcers of the bill, powerless.26 Tiberius, desperate for funding, had to

find a way to make sure the board could carry out the land redistribution it was created to do. His

opportunity presented itself when Attalus Philometor, the king of Pergamum, died and named the

people of Rome the heir to his kingdom.27 The money from Attalus’s will was the means in

which Tiberius would finance his land bill. Tiberius passed a plebiscite that claimed the money

for the entire citizenry before the Senate was able to act.28 This law was a direct challenge to the

Senate, as it went against their traditional purview of foreign policy. Tiberius who had already

appointed himself commissioner of his own land bill, and had expelled another tribune from

office, was now attempting to wrestle power that traditionally belonged to the Senate, and

granting it to the people.

Foreign policy had always been the domain of the Senate.29 The Senate determined what

provinces its magistrates served as governor in, what treaties it would make with other nations,

and what would happen to the revenues that were brought in from foreign powers. Controlling

foreign policy and protecting Rome from external threats gave the Senate their most important

responsibilities. Tiberius with his finance bill caused a shift in power in Rome. Everything he

had done at this point was to strengthen his relationship with the people, and his most dramatic

acts, like expelling Octavius made sure that he was the premier tribune within the confines of the

politics of the concilium plebis. Tiberius challenge to the Senate by controlling the funds from

the will went beyond the concilium. The law weakened the power and the authority of the

Senate, while at the same time expanding the power of the tribunate in the republican

government. Tiberius was challenging the Senate for not providing him with sufficient funds to

26 Steel, End of Roman Republic: Conquest, 18. 27 Plutarch, “Tiberius Gracchus,” 94. 28 Steel, End of Roman Republic: Conquest, 18.29 Steel, End of Roman Republic: Conquest, 18.

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implement his agrarian reform, and showed them and the people of Rome that he was able to go

beyond the Senate and act with the power of the people as his legitimacy.

Tiberius’s rapid rise to power created rumors throughout Rome that he was seeking the

kingship. He recognized that his challenges to the Senate had not gone unnoticed, and members

of the Senate wanted to reclaim the power that they had lost. Tiberius feared for safety of his life,

despite the sacrosanctity of his office. It is said that Tiberius traveled with a posse of about 3,000

plebeian who provided him protection and that he even carried a sword under toga, although

carrying a weapon was illegal within the city limits of Rome.30 Tiberius believed that if he was

reelected to the tribunate, it would mean he had retained the backing of the people and protect

him from any nefarious attack by members of the Senate.

Reelection to the tribunate was not illegal or unheard of, but was such a rare and

extraordinary measure that it deserves some discussion. The tribunate for many man was a

stepping stone to reach an imperium holding office. To some men it seems that the tribunate was

their highest aspiration. One such man was Lucius Sextus who had served tribune for seven

consecutive years. Sextus served as tribune before plebeians could hold magistracies. He was

able to hold the tribunate until his efforts to have plebeians serve as consuls was successful and

he was the first elected plebeian to hold the office. Gracchus’s motives to seek reelection were

for different reasons. Tiberius lived in a Rome where one of the two elected consuls every year

had to come from a plebeian family. His father, also named Tiberius, had served as consul. The

younger Tiberius Gracchus sought reelection to first protect his life from attacks by the Senate,

but more importantly because his land bill had not yet taken full effect and without him serving

as tribune, the bill was vulnerable to amendments or worse, repeal.

30 Plutarch, “Tiberius Gracchus,” 99.

19

Tiberius did not live long enough to gain re-election. Rumors had spread throughout

Rome that claimed he was seeking to be named king. The Senate met to decide whether Tiberius

should be executed as a tyrant. When the consul did not permit the Senate to legally execute

Tiberius a group of Senators and other rich men stormed the Capitoline hill where Tiberius had

gathered his forces to vote to re-elect him.31 They overtook the hill and killed Tiberius, the

consular Flavius Flaccus, and 300 people by stone them and beating them with clubs.32 This was

the first time in Roman history since the overthrow of the monarchy that blood was spilled in

civil strife also it was the first direct and clear challenge to tribunate sacrosanctity. A legal basis

for the challenging of sacrosanctity would not be resolved until the death of Tiberius’s brother,

the Tribune, Gaius Gracchus.

Tiberius Gracchus’s life and death were turning points in Republican Rome. The tribune

ushered in a new age of popular politics that would persist in Rome until the rise of Augustus

Caesar, who used popular politics himself to consolidate power among Rome’s citizenry. The

tribunate of Gracchus transformed the way the government in Rome operated in the last one

hundred years of the Republic, and he defined the role that the last generation of Tribunes would

play in that system. He inspired to his brother to the tribunate, who would inspire other later

leading tribunes in Rome. This increase of interest in popular politics would convince Julius and

Augustus Caesar that the only way to be the dominant man in Rome was to cater to the needs of

the people as well as the Senate.

Gaius Gracchus

31 Plutarch, “Tiberius Gracchus,” 100.32 Plutarch, “Tiberius Gracchus,” 100.

20

Gaius Gracchus is the most important individual in Republican Rome in increasing the

power and the authority of the tribunate. Gaius was Rome’s first true demagogue. Tiberius was a

popular politicians and certainly demagogic, but he alienated the people when challenging the

Senate. Gaius would not follow suit. It is important to note the tone in which the word

demagogue will be used in this paper. Demagogue usually has a negative connotation related to it

to define a rabble-rouser who stirs up the people to manipulate them for his personal political

gain. Demagogue will have a more positive connotation in this paper to describe men who

gained greater political influence, and had a relationship with the people that was symbiotically

beneficial. Gaius, unlike his brother, was able to challenge the power and authority of the Senate,

but with the full support of the people of Rome and of Italy. With this power Gaius was able to

expand the nature and power of the tribunate more than any other individual in Republican

history, and influenced Augustus to seek the support and power of the people in his quest for

absolute power.

In his biography of Gaius, Plutarch describes the personality of the younger Gracchus so

that the reader understands the type of man Gaius was, and why he accomplished what he did.

Plutarch describes Gaius as a man who was irascible, intense, and informal when addressing an

audience; Plutarch mentions that he would move so fast and sudden that his toga fall from his

shoulder during speeches, and Gaius would not bother to amend himself.33 He was a natural

orator, a person that a crowd loved and was drawn to naturally, and because of this Gaius was

successful with persuading a crowd. His skills of oratory were noticeable during Tiberius’s

tribunate, despite having barely turned twenty-years-old. His reputation for oratory was so high

that it is said he was Rome’s greatest orator until the rise of Marcus Tullius Cicero.34 Gaius

33 Plutarch, “Tiberius Gracchus,” 84.34 Harriet I. Flower, “Beyond the Contio: Political Communication in the Tribunate of Tiberius Gracchus,” Community and Communication: Oratory and Politics in Republican Rome, ed. Catherine Steel and Henriette Van Der Blom, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 86.

21

would become so impassioned during his speeches that he had to have his slave stand in the

crowd with a whistle to signal whenever Gracchus began to speak to fast or when his voice

would become to shrill. Gaius was as unapologetic and irreverent and committed to his cause, as

he was unapologetic and irreverent and committed when he orated to crowd.35

Gaius had secured a political future before he was old enough to hold any political office.

He was the maternal grandson of Scipio Africanus, the hero of the Second Punic War, the son of

a former Consul of Rome, and brother to the most powerful tribune in recent memory. Gracchus

was named to board of commissioners for the land redistribution during Tiberius’s tribunate

when he was only twenty-years-old. Gaius resisted going into politics following the death of his

older brother and retreated to a life as a private citizen. His time as an ordinary citizen, spent as a

socialite and partygoer, soon revealed itself as unsatisfactory to him and Gaius decided to return

to public life. Gaius wanted to restore honor to his family name, avenge the death of his brother,

and continue his brothers work and legacy as a popular politician.36 After a successful court

defense of a friend in his first real public appearance, he found himself assigned to a

quaestorship in Sardinia, where he excelled and distinguished himself apart from the brother of

Tiberius, or the grandson of Scipio Africanus.37 On his return to Rome, and defeating his

enemies’ challenges, he was elected to his first term as tribune, and the impact he had on the

office and the course of Roman history was like any other Tribune.

Mastering the skill and the art of oratory was essential to a tribune who aspired for

popular power. If a tribune could orate better and be able to persuade the people where others

could not that would secure the support of the people and grant the tribune with the power that

came with that support. Gaius was such a master and even radical orator that he was willing to

35 Plutarch, “Tiberius Gracchus,” 84.36 Plutarch, “Gaius Gracchus,” 100-101. 37 Plutarch, “Gaius Gracchus,” 101.

22

break with centuries of tradition if it meant persuading the people. This became apparent when

speaking to a crowd one day at a contio, Gaius decided to face the Forum and turn his back to the

Senate House, something that no other speaker had done before, instantly changing the nature of

oratory in Rome and the tribunate.38 Gaius, ever the demagogue, by physically facing his Forum

and turning his back on the Senate house, was a symbolic gesture that as tribune he would focus

and serve the needs and causes of the people without the Senate and their auctorictas.

Gaius’s tribunate is in multiple ways a continuation or a completion of his brother’s

tribunate. The younger Gracchus sought to improve and better the life of the plebeian who lived

outside the walls of Rome. The land bill of Tiberius was reinstated, and the landless plebs were

once again given redistributed land. Gaius also passed a bill that required the Republic to supply

soldiers in the army with their cloak and equipment, and that no one under the age of seventeen

could serve in the army. This was popular among the rural plebeians because as landowners they

were heavily relied upon to supply the army with men. Most men in the Army came from and

lived in the country. Ensuring that these citizens had land to own, that they did not have to spend

any of their own money to equip themselves to fight, and to protect their young men from dying

in battle before they were ever old enough to bear children was crucial to Gaius in gaining their

support.

A tribune could convince and persuade an urban citizen in the Forum or the concilium,

but a tribune needed to show a rural citizen, who was not physically in Rome to attend contiones,

results to secure their support. Agrarian and military reforms accomplished that feat, but there

was challenge of turning the support of the rural plebeian into manifested political power the

actual presence of rural citizens within the city of Rome was required. Gaius answered this

problem by passing laws that improved Roman infrastructure, namely the overseeing the

38 Flower, “Beyond the Contio,” 86.

23

construction of roads that stretched all across Italy. This building of roads was a notable

engineering feat. The roads were not only functional in that they were level and well built, but

also aesthetically pleasing. This aesthetic component was not only in the construction of the

roads but also the path through the Italian countryside that the roads took. The roads were

designed to bring the rural citizens to Rome so that they could vote, but also had other beneficial

effects. The roads led to increase trading, greater communication, and continued to center Rome

in the Italian world.

Gaius’s reforms did not only focus on the plight of the rural plebeians or only appeal to a

specific Roman demographic like those of Tiberius. Tiberius wanted the landless to have land

and the ultra-wealthy to have less control and power over the populace. Gaius did not distinguish

between the needs rural or urban plebeians and in doing so expanded his support base from his

brother’s. Gaius gained plebeian support through an expansive legislative program that shifted

power away from the Senate and the oligarchy and into the hands of the people. Expanding the

power of the people by extension expanded the power and influence of the tribunate. His reforms

affected foreign citizenship, the price of grain, election requirements, the powers of the

magistracies, and the lives of the military. Anywhere Gaius saw that the people could play a

stronger role, or where he could better improve the lives of all the citizens of Rome, instead of

the few, Gaius passed a bill.

In his first year as tribune Gaius Gracchus passed a law that revolutionized how grain

was distributed in Rome and to whom that grain was distributed. The continued success of grain

bills for future tribunes is the greatest lasting legacy of the Lex Frumentaria. The law provided

every citizen of Rome to purchase monthly rations of grain at a fixed price. This prevented

wealthy merchants from setting exorbitant prices and prevented plebeians from incurring debts.

24

Grain was now available to every citizen of Rome, despite class, for an affordable price.39 While

the law was applicable to every citizen, it is clear that this grain bill was directed to gain the

support of urban plebeians. These people did not own land and therefore could not grow their

own food. After the passage of the Lex Frumentaria the urban citizen did not need to worry about

the cost of food, or the availability of grain because it was now guaranteed. The urban plebeian

also did not have to worry about famine or a grain shortage because Gaius also established

granaries all throughout Roman Italy.40 Grain bills soon became a standard tribunician measure

for promoting a popular agenda that was on par with passing land bills in gaining the support of

the people.

Before the tribunate of Gaius Gracchus, courts established to collect debts and recover

money had juries that were composed entirely of member of the Senate. Gaius passed a law that

changed the requirement for jurors. Gaius’s law had those jurors selected from the equestrian

class, and barred Senators as sitting on juries.41 This class of men was composed of mostly

wealthy urban merchants who generally stayed directly out of politics. Many equestrians

indirectly played a role in politics by financially backing politicians, and while many equestrians

were connected to the oligarchy they were not members of it. Mouritsen, in Politics and Plebs in

the Late Republic, argues that the plebs who would have both the interest and the ability to

attend contio and voting assemblies on a regular basis would have been the equestrians.42 The

laws enacted would influence their income and since their income was not dependent on running

a shop, store, or labor then they had the time to participate politically in the Forum. This

legislation then gave them more power, in an area, money, that was of great concern to them. It

would have made Gaius a more popular man with the people that he needed the most to generate

39 Stockton, Gracchi, 126-129.40 Plutarch, “Gaius Gracchus,” 105.41 Stockton, Gracchi, 138.42 Mouritsen, Plebs and Politics, Kindle.

25

change for all of the Roman populace. This legislation weakened the close ties between the

equestrians and the Senate and strengthened the relationship between the equestrians and the

tribunes and by proxy with the rest of the plebeians. Gaining support among the equestrians with

the rest of the people made Gaius’s position in Rome stronger.

Gaius had the support of the rural and urban citizens, especially the urban equestrians,

and as Plutarch notes this gave him almost autocratic power in Rome. He was the most popular

man in the city and it was rumored that he was planning to stand for the consulship while also

standing for re-election to the tribunate. It turned out that he had no intention at being elected

consul, and he did not stand for another term as tribune. The people, however, still voted and

elected him tribune because of how highly regarded him and how universal his popularity among

the entire plebeian order was. Electing a man to an office he had held the year before and was not

standing for reelection was unheard of in Rome, but Gaius was the vox populi.

After Gaius’s reelection he directed his legislation at challenging the power of the Senate

while expanding the power of the populace. Gaius passed a piece of legislation that was

specifically directed at granting the entire populace more power at the expense of the Senate.

That legislation was the Lex de Provinciis Consularibus, which required the Senate to announce

what province it would send its imperium holding magistrates to govern before the magistrates

were elected.43 Traditionally the provinces were not assigned until after the elections were held.44

Knowing where a consul, or praetor may go and what kind of operations would be carried out

and what peoples would be governed and how those men would govern them were now

questions that the electorate could and did ask.

43 Stockton, Gracchi, 129. 44 Steel, End of Roman Republic: Conquest, 24.

26

Gaius continued the legacy of his brother by strengthening the plebeian position in

Roman foreign policy. Gaius oversaw the establishment of the colony of Junionia, in Northern

Africa in the land that the city of Carthage had once occupied.45 The establishment of colony by a

tribune is incredibly radical. First it enfranchises more people and as we will see this becomes a

defining cause for Gaius, and second like Tiberius it is an answer to the landlessness that is

rampant in Roman Italy. This is a colony for the people in which Roman citizenship could be

experienced with a roof over everyone’s head. If the Senate did not want to enfranchise more

people, then why did they allow for the construction of this or bribe a tribune to veto it? Well it

seems that the most obvious answer is that the Senate opposed granting voting rights to non-

Romans but Carthage is so far away that just like how Gaius Gracchus was unable to travel

quickly between the two, a voting citizen would not be able to either, and so the only one who

could somewhat participate would have been the rich who could afford to travel in the summer

for the elections and these citizens may have been more likely to agree with the position of the

Senate and aristocracy.

Establishing a colony was revolutionary but Gaius’s leaving Rome to oversee the

construction has baffled historians for millennia. Plutarch writes that Gaius would leave Rome to

oversee the establishment of the colony, and so it seems that Gaius would break the law by

leaving Rome for more than a day.46 Even if we accept that the powers-that-be allowed him to

break the law and travel to the colony for weeks on end, it was a risk not worth taking.

Physically separating himself from Rome, and the people and by extension his power would

ultimately prove to be Gaius’s greatest political blunder. A city like Rome does not stop for a

tribune to establish a colony, and to retain power and control over the political system and the

45 Plutarch, “Gaius Gracchus,” 108.46 Steel, End of Roman Republic: Conquest, 25.

27

popularity of the people it require a man to remain in Rome. The absence of Gaius led to his

popularity decreasing and his control of the people while remaining strong would never again be

at the height of when he was reelected to the tribunate for the second time. The rival tribunes of

Gaius, namely Livius Drusus, who was backed by members of the Senate, acted magnanimously

and used many of the same political maneuvers as Gracchus, when Gaius was not able physically

able to do so. Drusus was able to steal some of Gaius’s supporters because Gaius was absent

from the city and could not convince his base to remain loyal to him. Gaius was successful in

gaining a wider support base throughout the Mediterranean World but lost some support in the

city of Rome which would prove fatal in the long term.

Gaius’s most ambitious legislative reform may be his greatest lasting legacy but may also

be his greatest failure. He planned to enfranchise all of Latium, and give every free Latin Italian

man Roman citizenship.47 He was able to grant citizenship to the Italian Allies in his first year as

tribune, but considering those Allies already had some political rights the legislation was not that

radical. Granting citizenship to all of Latium however was radical and it was incredibly

unpopular in the city, and was one of the main reasons in the shift of public perception of Gaius.

Giving citizenship to the entirety of Latium, the region of Italy that Rome is located in, was too

far for the Republic, it would shift the balance of power too much too quickly. Had it passed who

knows how political power would have shifted, or how much power Gaius Gracchus would have

truly held. Like his grain legislation this would be an issue taken up by future tribunes until the

death of M. Livius Drusus the son of Gaius’s greatest rival, and the start of the Social War. This

law shows us how radical Gaius was willing to better the lots of both the plebeians in Italy and

his own.

47 Plutarch, “Gaius Gracchus,” 106.

28

Gaius Gracchus dedicated such a large portion of his thirty years on earth to make the

Roman world a more open and democratic society. That is his legacy, and while his intentions

may be argued and debated, it is certain that he was one of the most demagogic and

revolutionary politicians in Roman history. Gaius, however, had reached too far and tried to

change the political makeup of the Republic too much. Gracchus tried expanding the population

and the power of the people too far. He attempted to increase his own power and influence as

tribune, and the Senate and the elite of Rome decided that the only way to stop Gaius Gracchus

was to execute him. The irony in the death of Gaius Gracchus is that despite all the reforms and

laws he passed to shift the balance of power to the people, it was his death that helped shift that

power firmly into the hands of the oligarchy and later the emperor. The Senate, fearing that

Gaius would be elected to the tribunate for a third straight year, passed the first ever Senatus

Consultum Ultimum (SCU). Traditionally a law passed by the Senate because of their auctoritas,

moral authority, was known as a Senatus Consultum “The Decree of the Senate” which the

comitia centuriata would pass as a formality. While they were always followed the comitia and

even the tribune could interpret how to follow them. This SCU was an ultimatum. The law

demanded the death of Gaius Gracchus in order to protect the safety of the Republic. This would

set a precedent that would often be imposed on any tribune who would go too far and become

too popular. The power dynamic between the Tribune and the Senate was now more clearly

defined. The office of tribune would not see the like of a man as dominating as Gaius Gracchus

for another seventy years, and that is in part because the office was severely weakened it the

wake of his assassination. The Senate was now a body that could and would legally assassinate

elected officials. No matter how popular or how much power a politician wielded, the Senate was

always stronger.

29

The Sullan Constitution

Gaius Gracchus was assassinated by orders of the Senatus Consultum Ultimum in 121

and Publius Clodius Pulcher would not serve as tribune until 58. Rome drastically changed in

the sixty-three years between the tribunates of the two men. The end of the Social War, the first

of several civil wars in Rome, saw one man rise to assume absolute power. This man limited the

power of the people and the power of the tribunes because that power was a danger to the

Republic. This man changed the Roman Constitution and forever changed the manner in which

political business in Rome was conducted. This man was named Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix.

Sulla came to power as a result of the Social War that began in 88 following the

mysterious assassination of a tribune, Livius Drusus, who like Gaius Gracchus attempted to

enfranchise Italians. The assassination of Drusus caused the Italian cities to join together in

confederacy and revolt against Rome. The Italians fought to gain citizenship and have all the

political rights that came with that citizenship. The forces of Sulla were victorious on the

battlefield, but the goal of the Italian cities to attain citizenship, nevertheless, was

accomplished.48 The majority of Italian males were now also Roman citizens. The Social War

was the first of several civil conflicts in Rome and in Italy, and these conflicts ultimately saw

Sulla named dictator for life in order to restore order.

The years following the Social War were filled with civil strife for the control of Rome.

This struggle is separate from the struggle between the plebeians and the patricians, but not

unlike it. This struggle was between two men, Lucius Cornelius Sulla and Gaius Marius, and it

shifted the dynamics of Rome. Marius and Sulla’s Civil Wars were violent, not only on the

battlefield, but in the political arena as well. Marius had ordered the first series of proscriptions

48 Boatwright, The Romans, 181-183.

30

in Republican history. Proscriptions were orders for the public to execute any named citizen as

they threatened the safety of the Republic. The proscriptions targeted the supporters of Sulla and

the rivals of Marius. These orders did not only target popular plebeian politicians, but patricians

politicians as well, making it a first in Rome that a person’s politics could get them executed

without trial.49 Legal proscriptions would not return to Rome for almost another fifty years, but

the trend that politics could be a lethal and dangerous business remained well into the Imperial

Age. The ability for an individual to attain absolute power by means of violence is important for

understanding post-Sullan Republican politics, and the motives of certain individual politicians.

The first legacy of Sulla’s dictatorship was its length. Even though he retired from office

before his death, Sulla was originally appointed to a term that would last the remainder of his

life. The Romans were not opposed to autocratic rule, as the Office of Dictator was almost as old

as the Republic itself, but it was limited in that it was granted to a person in times of crisis and

was required to be relinquished after the crisis had been averted. Sulla was the first man that

assumed autocratic rule for an undefined period of time since the Kings of Rome. This

established a precedent that a man could assume complete unlimited autocratic power. This

precedent would become a catalyst in ending the Republic and bringing about the Empire.

As dictator, Sulla wanted the power of the Republic, which had been gained by the

tribunes, to return to the patricians and the Senate. Sulla repealed almost all the powers of the

office of Tribune to its status in 494. This took away a tribunes ability to legislate for Rome

without Senatorial approval. Sulla’s reforms then went beyond than returning it to its original

status, by disqualifying any man who held the tribunate from standing for higher office. These

reforms changed the tribunate in two ways. The first is obvious and it was that they had less

power and influence in politics, but the second, less obvious result, was that these reforms would

49 Boatwright, The Romans, 185-192.

31

ensure that ambitious men such as the Gracchi did seek election to the office.50 Sulla’s reforms of

the tribunate show that he realized the immense potential in power that the people held, and how

the potential could be fulfilled and wielded in the hands of an influential and charismatic tribune.

Instead of seeking popular support for himself he attempted to ensure that support from the

Roman people would mean very little in Roman politics. Sulla wanted a Rome where the people

depended on a Senatorial oligarchy rather than a Senatorial oligarchy that was dependent on the

people. The notion that there should be an office for the people that could legislate, and could

veto Senatorial laws was absurd to Sulla.

Sulla retired as dictator of Rome, despite any legal obligation to, after restoring order to

Rome. Power was now returned to the Senate and the power of the people and the tribunate had

been returned to their original status. In the years following his rule, however, order did not

remain, and the power of the tribunate soon returned to the status it held before Sulla and the

Social War. The one change of Sullan reform that remained was that civil violence was an

acceptable expression of power, and that there was greater emphasis on the power of the

individual. The powers of the tribunate were restored and the laws that were passed by earlier

tribunes were regarded as law. Sulla’s constitution wanted to return Rome to something that it

once, but no longer was. Rome was changing and evolving and could not return to its previous

system of government. That government did not fail, but it grew old and did not adapt. Patrician

leaders like Pompeius, Julius Caesar, and Augustus Caesar all learned from Sulla and his

inability to create lasting reformation. Power in Rome could no longer rest solely in the hands of

the Senate, and that if an individual were to rule Rome then that individual would need to rule

with the consent of both the patricians and the plebeians.

50 Boatwright, The Romans, 197.

32

Publius Clodius Pulcher

The tribunate of Publius Clodius Pulcher is exemplary of the changes both in the

tribunate and the political landscape in Rome that were present in the 50s. Clodius is one of the

most polarizing, but often overlooked figures in the last generation of the Roman Republic.

Mobster, populist, gangster, and reformer are words that are used to describe Clodius. Clodius

was a man who was unafraid to use the help of the aristocrats, specifically the triumvirate of

Pompeius, Caesar and Crassus who indirectly controlled Rome, to accomplish his goals.

Nevertheless Clodius was unafraid to consider the triumvirate and other leading men of the

Senate such as Cato and Cicero his political rivals. Clodius was unpredictable, a man who was a

brilliant politician and tactician, but was motivated more by his emotions than by his convictions.

It is difficult to discern if Clodius’s legacy on Rome was a positive or a negative one. His

motives for becoming tribune and his legislation have been called into question, but the results of

that tribunate and subsequent legislation are undoubtedly successful.

Publius Clodius Pulcher is one of the most extensively written about tribunes in ancient

sources. More is known about Clodius’s tribunate than any other tribune of his time because

most of our knowledge of Clodius comes from the writings of Cicero. Cicero’s writings of

Clodius must be taken with a grain of salt due to the intense rivalry and because of Clodius’s

presence in the letters of Cicero that it is clear that Cicero allowed his personal feelings influence

his writings. Cicero has a tendency to exaggerate no matter the subject, and especially when the

subject is something concerning Publius Clodius Pulcher. Despite the clear bias in the ancient

sources, scholars still have a full understanding the trajectory of Clodius’s career and how he

attained tribunate and what popular legislation he passed as tribune.

33

P. Clodius was born to the patricians family of the Claudii, but he chose to go by the more

plebeian sounding cognomen Clodius rather than the patrician sounding Claudius. Clodius

disgraced himself and his family in 62 B.C.E when he had to find a new way to gain political

prominence. In 62, Clodius was charged with the crime of dressing as a woman to sneak into the

house of Julius Caesar, the pontifex maximus, during a ritual of the Vestal Virgins for the Bona

Dea, “The Good Goddess,” to seduce the wife of Caesar.51Clodius trying to gain admittance from

something that he was barred from, from birth would happen again when he sought the tribunate.

Clodius was charged and had to stand trial because no men were allowed to attend a ritual the

Vestal Virgins. Clodius broke not only a Roman law, but committed a religious offense as well.

During the subsequent trial Clodius attempted to call Cicero as a witness to provide an alibi, but

Cicero testified that he had not been with Clodius that day. Clodius did escape conviction, at a

great personal cost, but Cicero’s failure to testify cemented a feud that would last rest of

Clodius’s life.

The Bona Dea Affair seemed to ruin chance Clodius had for continuing his political

career, and he needed to find a new way for advancement. Clodius saw the tribunate as his

chance at political redemption. The problem, however, was that Clodius was a patrician and only

plebeians could stand for the office. Clodius found the solution in adoption.52 His adoption to a

plebeian family was very controversial because his rivals saw it as a way for Clodius to strike

back at Cicero. Publius Fonteius, a twenty-year-old plebeian adopted Clodius, and immediately

emancipated his adopted son. This adoption was approved with the help of the influence of

51 Marcus Tullius Cicero, “Letter 13,” Letters to Atticus, translated by D.R. Shackleton Bailey, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999). 52 W. Jeffery Tatum, The Patrician Tribune: Publius Clodius Pulcher, (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999), Kindle ed. Chapter 4. The process of adoption that Clodius went through was known as adrogatio which happened when a man who was sui juris, “in his own right,” meaning his father had died was adopted and subjected himself to another’s patria potestas, “power of the father,” and required the approval comitia curiata.

34

Pompey and Caesar. Clodius had convinced the two that if he could become a plebeian and then

a tribune then Clodius would be a useful ally to them against their rivals.53

Scholars have argued that the triumvirate of Pompeius, Caesar, and Crassus essentially

controlled Rome when Clodius was elected tribune for 58. Older scholarship suggests the

triumvirate were the patrons of Clodius and that they used Clodius for their own popular means,

and that they enacted their own legislation through Clodius. Clodius only used this relationship

with the triumvirs when it was advantageous to him, and when it bettered him and the people to

challenge or attack the syndicate, he would do so.54 Clodius would use these triumvirs to seek

legitimacy and influence to carry out his own legislation at legislation, or as a cause to bring

about new legislation at others. In 58, Pompeius was losing his control of the conservative

faction of Rome, Caesar was in Gaul, and Crassus opted for . Cicero’s letters show that Clodius

did not follow the orders of Pompeius signifying how much power he had lost. Cicero mentions

in a letter to Atticus that Pompeius had ensured him that if Clodius took the tribunate, not harm

would come to Cicero.55 Cicero’s self-imposed exile in 58, when Clodius assumed the office,

confirms otherwise. Cato was appointed to govern Cyprus in 58, and left Rome. Clodius was

now the only individual left in a city of individuals.

From his first day as tribune, Clodius began an aggressive legislation campaign so to

establish himself as the most powerful man within the city. This legislation had two purposes, to

gain the support of the plebeians, and to challenge the authority of the triumvirate, especially

Pomepeius’s, and the Senate. Clodius wanted to show the people that he was their true champion

while weakening the power and influence of the triumvirate. The law that Clodius passed

continued the tradition of Gaius Gracchus by providing the people with free monthly rations of

53 Gruen, Last Generation, 98. 54 Gruen, Last Generation, 99. 55 Cicero, Letters to Atticus.

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grain.56 This was an immensely popular piece of legislation despite it being obviously financially

irresponsible. The bill had practical results for Clodius too because if a person did not need to

make money to pay for food and knew that their food was going to feed them every month then

their desire and demand to keep their shops open, or go to work every day lessened. The grain

bill thus allowed the citizens who normally did not attend contiones or vote in the concilium

plebis to know do so thus expanding the support base of Clodius even further than the support

bases of previous tribunes.

Another bill he passed on his first day in office limited they ways in which the office of

Censor could expel an individual from the Senate or the equestrian order. He also re-instituted

the collegia, “social clubs.”57 These collegia were clubs or guilds where men would meet for

social gatherings like trade guilds, or religious gatherings. The Senate had become suspicious of

these groups and feared that they may cause civil unrest and violence and outlawed them.58

Clodius knowing that restricting people’s right to assemble was unpopular restored this right to

increase his popularity.59The reinstitution of these collegia provided Clodius supporters who

were not only loyal, but also organized. Both this loyalty and organization would prove to be

beneficial to Clodius especially after his term, as tribune had come to an end.

After his first day as tribune and passing a bulk of his popular legislation, Clodius moved

his attention to Cicero. Clodius passed a law that made it illegal for any Roman citizen to put

another citizen to death without a trial. The law was retroactive, meaning that any citizen who

had executed others in the past could now be put on trial. Cicero as consul in 63 had executed

Cataline, and his supporters who had conspired to overthrow the Republic. The conspirators were

not given a trial because they posed an immediate threat to the safety of the Republic the

56 Steel, End of Republic: Conquest, 169.57 Steel, End of Republic: Conquest, 169. 58 Gruen, Last Generation, 228. 59 Gruen, Last Generation, 228.

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execution was considered legal. Clodius’s legislation made the execution illegal. Since the bill

was clearly directed at Cicero and a conviction was a guarantee, he was forced to go into self-

imposed exile.

After Cicero’s exile, Clodius passed another law to disgrace Cicero, this time mentioning

Cicero by name.60 The bill declared Cicero an outlaw, stripped him of his property, and limited

how close to Rome Cicero could physically get.61 Clodius then led a mob of the people and

destroyed Cicero’s house and damaged his property. After, Clodius consecrated the ground in

honor of the gods, and erected a shrine to Freedom.62This law would eventually be repealed and

Cicero was able to return to Rome in 57, but the damage had been done and Clodius showed

Cicero and Rome that he was not a politician who should be taken lightly.

The implications of Clodius’s first bill against Cicero went beyond their initial creation.

There is no doubt that the bill was drafted as an indirect assault to Cicero, but since it was not

appealed the law after the tribunate of Clodius it was instrumental in discouraging the Senate

from passing so many Senatus Consultum Ultimum. The SCU was designed so that the Senate

could execute its own citizens whom they felt threatened the immediate security of the Republic.

It circumnavigated the courts and was an extralegal maneuver to deal with crises that almost

always ended in the death of Roman citizens. The law though did not take this power away from

the Senate but was strong enough to caution them into when they chose to use that measure.63

This not only protected the lives of populist politicians like Clodius, but also protected the lives

of their supporters who would often lose their lives when an SCU was ordered. At the same time

60 Gruen, Last Generation, 245. Ad hominem legislation was considered illegal in the Republic since almost its foundation. 61 Gruen, Last Generation, 246.62 Steel, End of Roman Republic: Conquest, 170. 63 Gruen, Last Generation, 244.

37

it also checked the Senates, or consuls ability to suspend due process and civil liberties because

of some real or imaginary crisis.64

Clodius’s tribunate at the close of 58 was reelected as tribunate and his control of popular

politics persisted. Clodius still retained loyal, and well organized paramilitary gangs who he was

not afraid to spur to violence, and the man would constantly call for contiones so that he could

accuse politicians of various charges, or to argue for plebeian causes, or most likely to cause

disruption in Roman politics. Clodius vetoed every attempt to recall Cicero from exile and even

though he ultimately failed, his attempts show that the animosity between the two men remained

and was worsening. The tribune that is credited with successfully recalling Cicero was a man

named Milo and posed the largest tribunal threat to Clodius. The two men both controlled mobs

of people and used violent disruptive tactics to obstruct the other from accomplishing their

legislative goals.

The rivalry between Clodius and Milo continued after 57, after both men left the

tribunate. Clodius and Milo still retained large bands of loyal supporters and continued the use of

violent political tactics to disrupt contiones and the concilium. Clodius would remain the

strongest popular politicians in Rome throughout the 50s, until his death at the hands of Milo in

52 B.C.E. The death of Clodius shook Rome in a way that was unprecedented in the wake of a

political assassination. Milo was put on trial for the murder but because of civil unrest there was

never a verdict. Cicero did publish what he would of said in his defense of Milo in his work, Pro

Milone.65 The body of Clodius was brought back to Rome and a funeral pyre was set up outside

the Curia Hostilia, better known as the Senate House, and burned. In the violence and rioting

following the funeral the fire spread throughout the Forum and engulfed the Curia. Elections

64 Gruen, Last Generation, 245. 65 Marcus Tullius Cicero, Pro Milone, translated by N.H. Watts, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,1979).

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were postponed as both Clodius and Milo were standing for the praetorship and the consul

respectively. The weeks of chaos following the death and funeral of Clodius led to both the

patricians and plebeians calling for Pompeius to serve as consul, an office held traditionally by

two men, solely and restore order. It was after Pompeius’s election to the consulship and the end

of triumvirate in 55 following the death of Crassus in 55 that create the conditions in Rome that

would lead to civil war between Pompeius and Julius Caesar to determine what individual would

be able to gain control of the Republic.

Conclusions

The Office of Tribune was the office of the people in Rome. The tribunate protected the

people in Rome, and not just the ones who could afford to support a politician, but also the

people who would otherwise be unrepresented. Tribunes were then supported by the citizenry,

and with their support expanded the power of the tribunate. With this power the tribunate

challenged the Senate and leading individuals in Rome. This paper has shown that the most

important tribunes of the last century of the Roman Republic, beginning with Tiberius Gracchus

in 133 B.C.E., supported and promoted the causes of the people. At the same time these men

expanded the power of both the people and the tribunate in the last century of the Roman

Republic.

Scholarly tradition has seen a shift in focus in recent decades that examines the

democratic aspects of Roman politics. Historians such as Millar, Mouritsen, and Morstein-Marx

all have written extensively what avenues were available for the Roman people in Rome to

express their political power. These three scholars have all noted that the concilium plebis and

the contio were the two most important political institution to promote the cause of the plebs.

39

The relationship the people had with individual tribunes was another avenue for the plebeians to

express their power. The concilium and the contio were both ineffective institutions to the people

unless there was a strong influential tribune in power who could persuade the mob mentality of

the plebeians, to lead these assemblies. Through the tribunate the people were able to receive

greater political power, land, food, and other reforms that improved infrastructure and economic

benefits. In turn this support expanded the power and authority the tribunate held in Rome.

The tribunate was one office in a very complex system of government that had multiple

magistracies and voting assemblies within a very fragmented and class-conscious society. There

was very limited social mobility for the average citizen, and had it not been for the office of

tribune there would have been virtually no genuine representation for the people in Rome. The

tribunes of the last century were not only able to protect the people but to make manifest the

potential power that the plebeians always held in Rome. This increase of power in the people and

the tribune weakened the power of the Senate.

Tiberius Gracchus, by far the most traditional of the three tribunes, gained the support

and the backing of the demographic that he saw as the most vulnerable members of the Roman

citizenry, the landless rural plebeian. The support of rural plebs made Tiberius the most powerful

tribune in Rome. Tiberius’ major piece of legislation, a land bill, provided this landless plebeian

with physical property. This law came at the expense of the landowning elite who had amassed

large plots of land that were supposed to be in control of the Republic, and that land was

confiscated from them and given back to the Roman People. This decreased the wealth disparity

in Rome and allowed the military to recruit more soldiers, because more men met the property

requirement to serve in the Roman Army. The land bill thus gave Roman citizens land to live and

40

farm on and an opportunity for rural men to bring in an income outside the farm by serving in the

army.

Tiberius expanded the power of the tribunate further when he passed a bill, ensuring that

the plebeians, and not the Senate, received their inheritance from a foreign king. This law

directly challenged the traditional foreign policy purview of the Roman Senate. Foreign policy

was an unprecedented area for tribunal legislation, but because the will of Attalus II was

addressed to the Roman People, Tiberius claimed that his office should decide where the money

from the will would go. Tiberius’s decision was that it should go to benefit the people. The move

accomplished two things. It supplied the money that would provide land to more citizens, and

proved to the Senate that with the backing and the support of the people a tribune could have

influence in deciding an issue, regardless of whether that issue traditionally fell outside the

purview of the tribunate.

Gaius Gracchus gained the support both of the rural and urban citizens of Rome and of

Latium. Gaius knew that power came with the support of all the plebeians despite wealth or

economic status and the more supporters he gained among plebeians the more his influence and

power would increase. Gaius did not aspire to rule all of Rome, but that, as tribune, to shift the

balance of power from the authority of the Senate and patricians to the people. Gaius sought

power to guarantee that all of his reforms, most of which were radical, would be passed. These

Gracchan reforms improved the lives of the citizenry. Gaius built roads, continued to reform the

military, and reinstated the agrarian bill of his brother. Most of the reforms of Gaius sought to

improve the lives of a specific demographic of people like rural plebeians with continuing the

legislation of Tiberius, the urban plebeians with his grain bill, and the equites with opening up

41

membership to juries. Gaius further increased the power of the plebeians by enfranchising the

people throughout Italy, and the colonies that he established.

The reforms of Gaius also sought to weaken the power of the Senate in Rome. To Gaius

the plebeians were the only legitimate source of his power, and the influence and reforms of his

office reflect that sentiment. Thus Gaius did not see that the Senate was an authority over him or

the people of Rome. Gaius made it a law that the Senate would have to decide what province a

magistrate would govern over before that magistrate was elected. The establishing of colonies

did not only increase the number of plebeians, but it also continued to weaken the Senate’s hold

over Rome’s foreign policy.

A young politician from a patrician, senatorial family seemed to be the least likely person

in the Republic not only to pursue a popular agenda, but also to revoke his class and be adopted

by a plebeian so that he could stand for the tribune. Yet, that is exactly what Publius Clodius

Pulcher accomplished. He in many ways was a predecessor to Julius Caesar and Augustus. They

were able to gain the power of the tribune without revoking their patrician status. The Bona Dea

affair and the disgrace that followed may have been the impetus for Clodius to seek plebeian

adoption, but they were not the motives for Clodius’ pursuing a popular agenda. These views of

Clodius though are too simplistic, and do not serve to further understand Roman politics in the

50s, a decade Clodius was instrumental in shaping. It took him several years to become a

plebeian and there were other ways to repair a person’s political career in Rome. Clodius, born

Claudius, distanced himself from his historic patrician name even before he sought to revoke his

status. Clodius saw the tribunate as an office that brought a certain kind of power that was not

present in any other magistracy, that of the loyalty and the strength, both physical and symbolic,

of the people. Clodius saw the need for reform in Rome at the time to protect the interests of the

42

people instead of the interests of the triumvirs. Nevertheless, he ultimately misused his office

because the main motive behind that reform was to hurt and attack individuals in the Senate, like

Cicero.

Clodius used the tribunate to challenge the authority of the Senate and the triumvirate and

gain the popularity of the people. He passed popular legislation like the grain bill, and the

reinstitution of the collegia. These examples of Clodian legislation did not directly challenge the

triumvirate or the aristocracy, rather they secured the backing of the people. Because they did not

have to pay for food, and because they belonged to collegia, the plebeians, whom Mouritsen

claims could not and did not participate in politics, now could and did take part in Roman

politics. This ability to get average citizens to attend contiones regularly and participate in real

ways was a feat that even the Gracchi were not able to achieve. The members of certain collegia

backed Clodius so much that they served as a paramilitary force for him.

What makes Clodius different from the Gracchi is that he is the only one of the three who

lived beyond his term. Furthermore, even though he no longer had the powers of the office,

Clodius did not lose all of his power or prestige in Rome. Due to his tribunate Clodius was able

to gain a formidable political following that continued to follow him even after he left office. He

was able to disrupt voting assemblies and contiones so that his rivals would not be able to

implement their own legislation. Clodius operated the best in chaos, and he was skillful in

creating the chaos he needed. His use of violence and willingness to incite riots were a mark of

how Clodius conducted his business and how violent the political atmosphere in Rome was.

Clodius is just as much a product of the times in which he lived as he was an architect of those

times. Clodius gained the aedileship in 56, and had it not been for his death in 52 he may have

been able to gain a magistracy with imperium and retain the loyalty of the collegia.

43

The expansion of power of the tribunate and the continued success of the tribunate was

able to change the perception of popular politics among members of the elite. When Julius

Caesar was named dictator for life he was also granted tribunicia potestas (power of the tribune).

Caesar’s adopted son, Augustus, who was born to a plebeian family but became a patrician as a

result of his adoption would gain tribunicia potestas in the fourth year of his reign. In 23,

Augustus resigned from the consulship an office he had held since becoming Princeps Civitatis,

though he did retain maius imperium (military authority over all), and insisted upon being

granted tribunicia potestas.66 Augustus realized that to retain absolute power it was necessary for

him to have the power of the tribunate without having to retain the office. The maius imperium

granted Augustus the power of the magistracies without Senatorial approval, and tribunicia

potestas allowed the emperor to governor the people and legislate without the consultation or the

assent of the Senate. Caesar further realized that the only way to prevent tribunes like the

Gracchi from opposing him was to assume the powers of their office. The tribunate, like the

Senate, lost a great deal of significance after the consolidation of the Empire and the creation of

the office of Imperator. Nevertheless Augustus exposed that the power inherent in that office

remained critical for domination. The influence and the power of the tribunate remained in

Rome, but it was now controlled by the emperor, a patrician. This shift in the class that held

tribunicia potestas assured that that power of the people was not completely lost going into the

Imperial Age, but was no longer in the hands of a plebeian tribune.

The tribunate was an office that could only exist within a republic. The office was

representative to the citizenry, and it allowed for that citizenry to check the power of the

aristocratic Senate. The power of the tribunate reached a symbiotic equilibrium with the power of

the people. When the people were strong the tribunate was strong, and when the tribunate

66 Boatwright, The Romans, 293.

44

expanded its power, it also expanded the power of the people in Rome. The office was not a mere

annoyance to the Senate, and the actions of Sulla and Augustus show that the tribunate was

dangerous, the tribunate was a threat to patrician power. When Augustus came to power the

influence of the tribune ceased to exist in the way it did before the empire, because a

representative office does not belong within an autocratic government. Nevertheless, the

tribunates of Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus, and Publius Clodius Pulcher provided a template for

incorporating the voices and power of the people within their society. The emperors who

followed them continued to acknowledge this power of the plebeian voice by retaining the

tribunicia potestas.

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