Optimates in the Senate like Scaurus, Crassus, and Scaevola were scandalized by all this. Their attempt to rein in the publicani had backfired and now one of the best men in Rome had been banished. The optimates concluded that taking back control of the Extortion Court was the only sure guard against future persecutions. This looming showdown over the courts would spiral out of control and make 91 another year marked by political violence—marks coming with predictable regularity. First 133, then 121, then 100, and now 91. Violence had become a routine part of the cycles of Republican politics.17
THE MAN AT the center of the latest crisis was Marcus Livius Drusus. Not unlike the Gracchi, Drusus was an ambitious young noble on the make. He was one of the most talented orators of a new generation that had grown up on the speeches of Crassus and Antonius. He carried himself with the arrogant confidence of a young man who expected the world to come to him. He loved being the center of attention, and when an architect once boasted that he could build a wonderfully secluded house that provided security and discretion, Drusus said, “If you possess the skill you must build my house in such a way that whatever I do shall be seen by all.”18
Drusus did not traffic in populare circles—he was a scion of the optimate and raised to be a talented, if arrogant, future leader of the nobility. His father, Drusus the Elder, had fully ingratiated himself with the optimates for his attacks on Gaius Gracchus, and later shared a censorship with Scaurus in 109. It is not surprising that Scaurus tapped the son of his old colleague to carry a package of bills to the Assembly to restore judicial power to the Senate.19
Knowing that transferring the jury pool back to the Senate would trigger Equestrian resistance, Drusus and the optimates planned to build the same coalition pioneered by Gaius Gracchus, except use its power this time to build the Senate up rather than tear it down. First, Drusus proposed enlarging the Senate from three hundred to six hundred men. That way even if “the Senate” controlled the courts, it would only be after it was augmented by three hundred prominent Equestrians. This was a provocative proposal, as existing senators might not like to see their prestige watered down—nor be happy about the arrival of uncouth commoners. But the senatorial prohibition on engaging in commerce meant if a potential new senator was a merchant, he would have to either give up his trade or decline admission. Either way, the new senators would all be landed gentry like the old senators, with only the men of business left out in the cold.20
As the Equestrians were quite capable of mobilizing public support for their interests, Drusus was ready with a slate of programs to feed the old Gracchan coalition. For the plebs urbana, Drusus proposed a new subsidized grain dole. For the rural poor, Drusus proposed an agrarian law that was modeled on the original
But though Drusus’s intention was to make everyone happy by promising everyone everything—he boasted that “he had left nothing for anyone else to distribute”—this time the people dwelt on the downsides. Neither rural farmers nor senatorial elites liked subsidizing grain for the plebs urbana. The old senators were wary of adding three hundred new members and diluting their own power. The Equestrians worried they were about to be shut out of power altogether. And of course, nearly all Romans from every class and occupation opposed Italian citizenship.22
DRUSUS AND HIS optimate backers also faced stiff opposition from one of the consuls for the year, Lucius Marcius Philippus. Philippus was an old rival of Scaurus and Crassus going back to the crisis years of 104–100. Philippus was the one who said there were only two thousand men who owned property in Italy while proposing a radical land redistribution bill of his own. In fine Roman fashion, now that a similar bill was being proposed by his enemies, Philippus opposed it vehemently. He was backed by the publicani, who rightly felt threatened by Drusus’s package of laws. On the day of the vote, Drusus had done his work well and it looked like everything was going to pass. But then, Philippus marched into the Forum and tried to shut down the Assembly. One of Drusus’s men “seized him by the throat and did not let go until blood poured into his mouth and eyes.” Philippus managed to get away but he was furious at the maltreatment of a consul.23
