How Did Tiberius Lose His Life

Appian once claimed “Tiberius lost his life because he followed up an excellent plan in too lawless a way”. Tiberius Gracchus proposed a plan which would redistribute land amongst Roman citizens. Though controversial, Tiberius’s plan was brilliant and well thought. However, the actions Tiberius took to have his plan made into a law were dishonorable and unruly. When Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus became tribune, one of his first actions were proposing a law which would have regulated the use of the public lands of the Roman people. Rome had fought countless wars against their neighbors. Thus, Rome had acquired a lot of land. “The core of the measure was…that limited to 500 iugera (about 300 acres or 120 hectarces) the amount of “public” land that a single individual could exploit merely by occupying it.”(Boatwright, 87) Tiberius wanted to give citizens a maximum amount of land deemed public to occupy. Along with this, he proposed the excess was to be confiscated and then distributed into small portions amongst citizens who didn’t own any land. With the increase in
population caused by Rome’s many wars, the gap between the rich and the poor were more pronounced. His plan would have provided poor, landless citizens a piece of their own land to live on as well as to farm on. Due to this, many occupiers would lose portions of their land in favor of the law. Tiberius also proposed for occupiers to be compensated for this lost land by making their remaining pieces of land their own private property. This would prevent their remaining property immune to any future seizures and distributions of land. Hence, once the land is made private property, it would belong to an occupier for as long as they would like without any threat of their land being taken from them. Another feature of the proposal included deciding what was considered public land and dividing the remaining land up evenly. He proposed that men in groups of three were to determine which land was public and which was private. These groups would also be in control of assigning land to as many citizens as deemed possible. Previously, special magistrates were chosen to survey the land and supervise the division and assignment of this land. The groups of three could have prevented any favoritism towards citizens when it came to the distribution of land. This aspect of his proposal can be considered the most innovative but, also the most controversial. The proposal would have also moved much of the poor citizens from the citizens from urban areas, which would ease the tensions between rich and poor. His reform was met with a lot of controversy amongst the government. Many memebers of the government opposed the plan to prevent their own land from being distributed. Others worried that the reforms would gain Tiberius popularity and hurt his political rivals. Eventually, the proposal went through a vote and became a law. The voters chose Tiberius, his brother, Gaius, and his father-in-law, Appius Claudius Pulcher, to be the commissioners. They would be in charge of dividing and assigning the land. The actions Tiberius took to ensure the proposal be made into a law were considered unprecedented and lawless. His chief opponent, a tribune named Marcus Octavius, attempted to use his power to prevent a vote on the proposal. Tiberius had attempted to persuade Octavius against doing so but, Octavius refused to be swayed. Tiberius answered this by having Octavius replaced as a tribune, which overrode any of his vetoes. A tribune was considered sacrosanct. Tiberius’s action of removing Octavius from office was drastic and violated the laws of the tribunes. Tiberius continued to use unprecedented methods to ensure the agrarian law wasn’t repealed. “ Fearing that misfortune would come upon him if he should not be re-elected for the next year,…he went about canvassing each one to elect him tribune for the next year…The wealthy held that it was not constitutional for a man to hold the office twice in succession.” (Thatcher, “Appian”) In Rome at the time, a tribune could not hold the office consecutively. There is a limit to allow other men to run as tribune as well as to prevent corruption. Tiberius declaring that he was going to run for tribune twice was unprecedented. He feared that one of his rivals would attempt to have his law removed and wanted to protect it. His actions didn’t sit well with his rivals, who argued that his actions were illegal and unconstituitional. On the day of the vote, Tiberius’s rivals attacked him and his supporters, killing up to two to three hundred, including Tiberius himself. Tiberius’s agrarian law was wise and efficient.
He proposed the law in hopes that it would aid the many troubles of Rome at the time. He wanted to assist the poor and ease tensions and instability in the urban regions. However, his actions to safeguard this law were unconstitutional and unprecedented. He looked past the law in order to get his own way without much thought of others. These selfish notions are what led to his death and downfall. Even with all of this in consideration, his rivals’ approach to hinder his reelection were even more lawless than Tiberius’ actions in attempts to preserve the agrarian law. Despite the fact that the Romans were aggressive, their actions of attacking and killing Tiberius and his supporters were unjustifiable. There are other ways to stop Tiberius’s reelection. It is possible that voters would decide against reelecting him, which could have prevented his
murder.