The Storm Before the Storm полностью

THE YEAR 132 BC DAWNED WITH THE SENATE READY TO bury the revolution of Tiberius Gracchus. They created a special commission whose purpose was to punish those who had supported Tiberius’s illegal bid for monarchy. This commission would be led by the new consuls—Publius Rupilius and Publius Popilius Laenas—who were given the authority to pass capital sentences. But there were questions about the legality of this extraordinary tribunal. According to the ancient Law of the Twelve Tables, “Laws concerning capital punishment of a citizen shall not be passed… except by the Assembly.” Neither the Senate nor the consuls had the right to bring capital charges against citizens on their own authority—but here they were, doing it anyway.²

The populace was outraged at the brazen flouting of the law and their outrage grew when only lower-class plebs or resident foreigners were targeted for prosecution. The aristocratic senators who had participated in the affair—for example, the authors of the Lex Agraria—were never called to account despite their central role in the crisis. For the next few weeks the common people of Rome lived under the ominous shadow of the tribunal. Men were hauled before the consuls for the most tenuous connection to the Gracchan movement. Some were executed, many more driven into exile.³

If it was obnoxious to many that no senators were called to account for themselves, it was downright sacrilegious that Scipio Nasica still walked free. Nasica had done nothing less than orchestrate the murder of a sacrosanct tribune. That he had yet faced no consequences was literally a crime against the gods. So Marcus Fulvius Flaccus, a young reformist senator and ally of the Gracchans, announced his intention to bring Nasica to justice. Whatever they thought of Nasica’s conduct, the Senate could not stand by while an angry mob prosecuted the pontifex maximus. Luckily a convenient solution presented itself. With Tiberius dead, the Senate had taken back control of the Kingdom of Pergamum, and they named Nasica to an embassy that would travel to Pergamum, assess the situation, and begin the process of annexation. The pontifex was incensed that he was being shuffled out the back door, but complied with the will of his colleagues. Nasica departed for the east, where he would live just long enough to witness a giant slave revolt before dying bitterly, “without any desire to return to his ungrateful country.”⁴

Having defused this crisis the Senate also refused to ignite a new one. They knew there were limits to how far they could go with their repressive antics, so they did not attempt to repeal the Lex Agraria or to shut down the land commission. Either because they finally admitted the efficacy of reform or because they believed that stopping the process now would spark a riot, the Senate allowed the commission to continue its work. They assigned Mucianus—one of the senatorial authors of the Lex Agraria—to take Tiberius’s place on the commission alongside Claudius and young Gaius Gracchus. The redistribution of ager publicus continued.⁵

WHILE ALL OF this was unfolding in Rome, Scipio Aemilianus was half a world away wrapping up the conquest of Numantia. He had arrived eighteen months earlier and found the Spanish legions demoralized, inert, and lacking discipline. Aemilianus cleaned them up and ran them around on daily exercise to get them back into fighting shape. After a full year of preparation, Aemilianus then called in the full weight of Rome’s available manpower. In the spring of 133 more than 60,000 Italian, African, and Spanish soldiers surrounded the pitiful city of Numantia, which was now manned by just 8,000 holdouts. In the face of this overwhelming force the Numantines admitted defeat: “Despairing, therefore, of escape and in a revulsion of rage and fury they made an end of themselves, their families and their native city with the sword, with poison and with general conflagration.” When the few remaining traumatized survivors exited the gates, Aemilianus ordered them thrown in chains and Numantia razed to the ground.⁶

Aemilianus expected this victory to be the talk of Rome, but shortly after the fall of Numantia word came of a major political crisis in Rome. After passing a controversial land bill, Tiberius Gracchus and three hundred of his followers had been killed and dumped in the Tiber. Aemilianus did not respond diplomatically to the news. With the official story being that Tiberius had conspired to make himself a king, Aemilianus responded with another dose of Homeric wisdom: “So perish all those who attempt such crimes.” But when Aemilianus’s Homeric quip landed back home, the streets murmured with displeasure. Had Aemilianus just sanctioned the murder of a tribune—his own brother-in-law, no less? The same people who had carried Aemilianus to two extraordinary consulships now saw him as just another out-of-touch noble.⁷