The Storm Before the Storm полностью

Just as had happened during Flaccus’s consulship, the Senate dealt with Gaius’s call for Italian citizenship by once again expelling non-Roman Italians from entering the city in the run-up to the vote. The decree stated, “Nobody who does not possess the right of suffrage shall stay in the city or approach within [five miles] of it while voting is going on concerning these laws.” Facing a population thoroughly hostile to the bill, Gaius let it die rather than risk his other plans. Another attempt at reform having failed, the issue of Italian citizenship would remain a persistent problem for the Romans. Especially because the Italians were already detecting a pattern: citizenship would be dangled only to be snatched away at the last minute. It was not a game that amused them.³⁹

AFTER LOSING THE vote on Italian citizenship, Gaius sailed for North Africa in the spring of 122. The first of his colonies being built was the most controversial of all. Located on the site of old Carthage, the colony would control a strategically advantageous port, but the superstitious Romans were wary of occupying haunted ground. Leaving Flaccus behind to mind Rome, Gaius personally traveled to Carthage to oversee the founding of the colony. It’s hard to say exactly why Gaius departed Rome at this moment—perhaps it was because he felt that his presence during the building of the colony was important both practically and symbolically. But his support among the people would not hold in his absence.⁴⁰

Gaius spent seventy days in Africa, and during those seventy days nothing went right. The survey team laying out the plots of land and design of the colony were plagued with problems. A post planted to mark the center of town was hit with a gust of wind and snapped. The entrails for a required sacrifice were similarly scattered by winds. Then wolves set upon the boundary markers and carried them away. And to the superstitious Romans, these problems were not just setbacks, they were proof that the gods did not approve of Gaius’s plans. The Senate would soon be able to use the reports of ominous portents to mount their final attack on Gaius and his followers.⁴¹

Meanwhile, back in Rome those followers were dwindling by the day. Flaccus was not nearly as deft as Gaius when it came to politicking and Drusus was running circles around him. With the fabled twelve colonies already making the Gracchan program look stingy, Drusus announced that the land Gaius, Flaccus, and Carbo had distributed as land commissioners—which stipulated rent must be paid to the state—would now be rent-free. Drusus was successfully outflanking the Gracchans from the popular side, and Gaius was now painted as an ungenerous skinflint.⁴²

Gaius returned after his two-month absence to find his political standing had plummeted. The people who once supported him now cheered Drusus. The stories that had come out of Carthage hinted that Gaius was now courting the wrath of the gods themselves. But Gaius refused to back down. When he returned, he vacated his house on the Palatine Hill and took up residence in a smaller house near the Forum—he would live among the people to try to prove that it was he—not Drusus—who had their interests at heart.⁴³

To ensure the survival of his legislation Gaius decided against all precedent to run for a third consecutive term. On election day, Gaius emerged with the necessary number of votes to secure reelection, but the observers who monitored the election tripped over themselves challenging Gaius’s ballots, alleging that most were fraudulent and that the ballot box had been stuffed. It did not take long for the magistrates in charge of the election to agree, toss out most of Gaius’s votes, and declare him defeated. Gaius protested, but there was nothing he could do. The election results were verified and that was that. When the new year arrived, Gaius was out of office, stripped of the immunity from prosecution and the sacrosanct protection from physical harm. Left powerless and unprotected, he was about to be forced to watch his legislation die.⁴⁴

NEARLY AS BAD as losing the election in 121 was watching Lucius Opimius win the consulship. An avowed enemy of the Gracchi, newly elected consul Opimius made it his personal mission to destroy Gaius Gracchus as he had once destroyed Fregellae. Opimius’s plan was not just to repeal the Gracchan legislation, but to also provoke Gaius into doing something illegal that would justify prosecution and banishment. For his part, Gaius tried to avoid taking the bait, but when Opimius let it be known that he was going to abandon the colony at Carthage, Gaius finally organized some of his old supporters to stage a demonstration. How much genuine support Gaius actually had left is unknown, and there is a passing hint in Plutarch that his mother Cornelia paid non-Romans to sneak back into the city and support her son in his hour of need.⁴⁵