Rome’s expansion in the Italian peninsula and then overseas led to some changes in its political and social life at home. The Senate began to play a larger role in running the government. Although only the assemblies could pass laws, the Senate could propose them, and it also issued decrees. Magistrates usually carried out the Senate’s decrees.
As the Senate gained power, its members also sought personal wealth. After 218 B. C.E. senators could not engage in commerce, so many focused on buying land and creating huge farms, called latifundia. The senators built these estates at the expense of farmers with small plots of land. Many of these farmers had to serve in the military, preventing them from running their farms efficiently. If a soldier-farmer died in combat, his family often had trouble working the land, so poor, struggling farm families often sold out to the wealthy. In his work Civil Wars, the ancient historian Appian (d. c. 160) noted that many typical Italians were “hard pressed by poverty, taxes, and military service” (as quoted in Jo-Ann Shelton’s As the Romans Did).
By the middle of the second century B. C.E., Rome had a growing number of landless peasants. Since military service was based on wealth, the Republic found that it had a shrinking supply of army recruits. In 133 B. C.E., a tribune named Tiberius Gracchus (c. 164-133 b. c.e.) proposed a solution. He wanted to break apart large holdings of public land and give the land to the peasants. According to the Roman historian Plutarch, writing in his Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans, Tiberius said the Republic’s soldiers, “having no houses or settlements of their own, are constrained to wander from place to place with their wives and children.”
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July and the Julian Calendar
One honor the Senate gave Julius Caesar was renaming the month of his birth for him. What had been called Quintilius, Latin for "fifth month," became Julius. The modern English July comes from that name. Caesar also created a calendar called the Julian calendar. This replaced the old Roman calendar that had 355 days and began on March 1. Using the Egyptian calendar as a model, Caesar made the year 365 and a half days long, starting on January 1. That calendar is still used throughout the Western world, although in 1582 Pope Gregory XIII (1502-1585), the head of the Roman Catholic Church at the time, made some minor changes to it. This modified Julian calendar is called the Gregorian calendar.
The land reform law passed despite opposition from the Senate. Tiberius Gracchus had angered the senators when he did not consult with them before proposing his reform. He also came into conflict with the other tribune of the plebs at the time when Tiberius called for a vote to have his rival removed from office-something the Romans had never done before.
Eager to pursue his reform, Tiberius decided to run for a second term as tribune. This step was not illegal, but highly unusual, and it led to further grumbling from his critics. A group of senators accused him of trying to rule as a tyrant, and they organized a mob that attacked Tiberius and his supporters. About 300 people-including Tiberius Gracchus-died in the rioting.
Within a decade, Tiberius’s brother, Gaius Gracchus (d. 121 b. c.e.), became a tribune, and he wanted to extend his brother’s reforms. Gaius also hoped to gain some revenge for his brother’s murder and increase his own political power. To help the farmers, he built roads that connected the countryside with city markets. To feed the poor, he passed the Grain Law, under which the Roman government bought wheat overseas and sold it in Rome at a fixed price, which kept the price of wheat affordable. In general, Gaius’s actions won him support among the equites and the poor, while angering many of the senators. They saw the changes as a threat to their power and wealth. Gaius, like his brother, died when his opponents in the Senate attacked him and his supporters.
The actions of the Gracchus brothers (known collectively as the Gracchi) led to the creation of two distinct political groups: the optimates and the populares. The optimates, or “best men,” wanted to preserve the Senate’s power and favored using force to end any public emergencies. The populares claimed to represent the general population and would take action without the Senate’s approval. In general, however, the leaders of both groups came from the same wealthy class of Romans. Their political conflicts were often based on personal hatreds and a hunger for power, not a desire to carry out a political philosophy.