Tiberius Gracchus

Tiberius Gracchus proposed land reform and was clubbed to death by senators, beginning a century of political violence in Rome. Born around 163 BC into the highest nobility — his father was twice consul, his mother Cornelia was the daughter of Scipio Africanus, and his sister married Scipio Aemilianus — he served at Carthage and in Spain, where he negotiated a treaty saving twenty thousand men, which the Senate repudiated. The problem he addressed was structural. Long wars had ruined smallholders, whose land was absorbed into vast estates worked by enslaved captives, while public land taken in conquest had been occupied by the wealthy far beyond legal limits. Since property was the qualification for military service, the dispossessed could not be recruited, and the army's manpower base was shrinking. As tribune in 133 BC he proposed enforcing the existing limit on public land and redistributing the surplus in small allotments. He then broke convention repeatedly. When a fellow tribune vetoed the bill, he had the assembly depose him, which had no precedent. He bypassed the Senate on the finance by appropriating the bequest of the king of Pergamum. And he stood for a second consecutive tribunate to protect himself from prosecution. His opponents claimed he sought a crown. On election day the pontifex maximus, Scipio Nasica, led a group of senators and clients out of a meeting; they broke up benches and beat Tiberius and some three hundred supporters to death, throwing the bodies in the Tiber. His brother Gaius revived the programme and died the same way in 121 BC.

• Lived: 163 BCE – 133 BCE
• Nationality: Roman
• Roles: ruler