84 Chapter 5
proposal, though not original, was straightforward: Ad-
mit them to Roman citizenship. Had this been done,
Rome might have been spared a bloody war, but the
plebeian assembly had no desire to share its privileges.
A conservative reaction set in, and Gaius was defeated
for reelection in 121 B.C. When the assembly began to
repeal its earlier reforms, rioting began. Gaius and a
band of followers fortified themselves on the Aventine
hill. The Senate declared martial law for the first time
in its history, and the reformers were slaughtered. The
violence was committed by Roman troops, not by
members of the senatorial opposition and their clients.The Fall of the Republic
The Gracchi had tried to address Rome’s fundamental
problems and failed. Though the Senate’s view of the
constitution triumphed, at least for the moment, that
failure led ultimately to the collapse of the republic.
Equestrians and Italian allies felt excluded from their
rightful place in the political system, and far too many
citizens remained landless and dependent upon what
amounted to welfare. The army, deprived of an ade-
quate number of recruits, grew steadily weaker. Al-
though not the time for foreign adventures, in 111 B.C.
the Senate reluctantly declared war on Numidia. The
African kingdom had been engulfed by a succession
struggle during which the Romans backed the losing
candidate. The winner, Jugurtha, celebrated his victory
by murdering a number of Roman businessmen. Be-
cause most of the victims were equestrians, a tremen-
dous outcry arose in the plebeian assembly, and the
Senate was forced to give way.
For nearly four years the war went badly. The ple-
beian assembly and its equestrian allies knew that the
senators disliked the war and began to suspect that
some of them were taking Numidian bribes. In 107 B.C.
they elected Gaius Marius consul. Like Cato before
him, Marius (c. 157–86 B.C.) was a “new man” who
came to politics with the support of an old senatorial
family. To gain the votes of the assembly, he turned
against his patrons. If his ethics were questionable, his
military abilities were not. He defeated Jugurtha with-
out capturing him and then turned his attention to the
north where two Germanic tribes, the Cimbri and the
Teutones, threatened the Roman settlements in Gaul.
His lieutenant, the quaestor Lucius Cornelius Sulla
(138–78 B.C.), was left to track down the Numidian
and destroy him in a hard-fought guerrilla campaign
that made his reputation and infuriated Marius, who
thought that the younger man had taken too much
credit for the victory.
War on two fronts when social dislocation had re-
duced the pool of eligible recruits made keeping the le-
gions up to strength virtually impossible. Marius felt
that he had no choice but to reform the army by admit-DOCUMENT 5.2
The Reform Program
of Gaius Gracchus
Here Plutarch summarizes Gaius Gracchus’s plan for reform-
ing Roman society as presented in 123–121 B.C. It is easy to
see why the senators felt that he must be destroyed.Of the laws which he now proposed with the ob-
ject of gratifying the people and destroying the
power of the senate, the first concerned public
lands, which were to be divided among the poor
citizens; another provided that the common sol-
diers should be clothed at public expense without
any reduction in pay, and that no one under seven-
teen years of age should be conscripted for military
service; another concerned the allies, giving the
Italians equal suffrage rights with the citizens of
Rome; a fourth related to grain, lowering the mar-
ket price for the poor; a fifth, dealing with the
courts of justice, was the greatest blow to the
power of the senators, for hitherto they alone could
sit on the juries, and they were therefore much
dreaded by the plebs and equites.But Gaius joined
300 citizens of equestrian rank with the senators,
who were also 300 in number, and made jury ser-
vice the common prerogative of the 600.... When
the people not only ratified this law but gave him
power to select those of the equiteswho were to
serve as jurors, he was invested with almost kingly
power, and even the senate submitted to receiving
his counsel....
He also proposed measures for sending out
colonies, for constructing roads, and for building
public granaries. He himself undertook the man-
agement and superintendence of these works and
was never too busy to attend to the execution of
all these different and great undertakings.
Plutarch. “Life of Gaius Gracchus,” from Roman Civilization:
Third Edition: 2 Vol. Set,Naphtali Lewis and Meyer Rheinhold,
eds. Copyright © 1990, Columbia University Press. Reprinted
with permission of the publisher.