For centuries during the Roman Republic, a small group of wealthy families controlled much of the land. But when a tribune proposed redistributing that land to poor Romans, enraged senators beat him to death with wooden benches.
Rome’s Wealthy Landowners
According to Roman tradition, Romulus, the city’s legendary founder, chose one hundred leading men to serve as Rome’s first senators. Their descendants became the patricians, inheriting vast estates and securing their place as Rome’s ruling class.
Farmers Lose Their Land
Many poorer Romans farmed small plots, growing little more than enough to survive. Rome was almost constantly at war, so when called to military service, these citizen-farmers left their fields to wives, children, or elderly parents.
With the farmer away for months or even years, fields were neglected, debts mounted, and families were forced to sell to wealthy landowners. Rome’s victories also brought thousands of enslaved people into Italy to work the expanding estates. When soldiers finally returned home, they found their farms sold and little chance of starting over. Driven from their farms, many families crowded into filthy apartment buildings and searched for work.
Tiberius Gracchus
By 133 BCE, the land crisis had become impossible to ignore. Dispossessed citizens found an unlikely leader in Tiberius Gracchus, a wealthy plebeian from one of Rome’s most distinguished families. Gracchus championed the cause of landless farmers and was elected tribune.
A Fight Over Land
Gracchus proposed taking public land that wealthy Romans had claimed and redistributing it to landless citizens. Poor Romans cheered the proposal, but many senators saw it as a direct attack on their wealth and power. As the political battle grew more bitter, Gracchus sought a second term as tribune. His enemies accused him of trying to make himself king.
Murder on Capitoline Hill
Election day arrived with both sides expecting trouble. Supporters of Gracchus gathered on the Capitoline Hill while senators watched with growing alarm. As shouting broke out, Gracchus tried to address the crowd, but few could hear him.
The attack was led by Scipio Nasica, Gracchus’s own cousin. Declaring Tiberius a threat to the Republic, Nasica called on senators to follow him. Finding no weapons nearby, they tore apart wooden benches. They rushed into the crowd, striking Gracchus and his supporters. Gracchus was beaten to death, and his body and those of many followers were thrown into the Tiber River.
Gaius Gracchus
Ten years later, Tiberius’s younger brother Gaius picked up the same fight. Elected tribune in 123 BCE, Gaius pushed even further. In 121 BCE, the Senate passed an unprecedented decree authorizing consuls to execute citizens without trial. As armed men closed in, Gaius ordered a slave to kill him rather than allow himself to be captured. Three thousand of his supporters were later executed.
For many Romans, the murders of the Gracchi brothers marked a turning point. Political disagreements once settled through debate and elections were now settled with violence.
Sulla and Political Violence
Lucius Cornelius Sulla was a general who believed the Senate, not elected leaders, should rule Rome. After defeating his rivals in a civil war, Sulla marched his army into Rome, declared himself dictator, and confiscated land from his enemies to reward his supporters. To solidify control, he instituted posted execution lists known as proscriptions, seizing his victims’ land to reward his veterans.
Sulla believed that he had saved the Roman Republic. Yet his use of political violence left a dangerous legacy: future leaders learned that an ambitious general could seize power by force, silence his enemies, and rule through fear.
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Mr. Donn has an excellent website that includes a section on Ancient Rome.