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Welcome back to Myths & Mischief! This is your Lovable Lord of Lore. Today’s mischievous myth is about the danger of revolutions even when they are righteous.

But before we dive any deeper into the Gracchi Brothers, might I draw your attention to this conveniently located “hiring” sign? Yes, that’s right, Myths & Mischief is looking to welcome new faces to our crew of creatives. If you’re an artist, writer, social media maven, coding genius, or graphic designer who prefers to work remotely, we’d love to meet you! Now, where were we? Ah, yes, the Gracchi brothers.

 

 

After seeing the new golden statue of Trump, I was reminded of the phrase, “worth its weight in gold.” Those words were perhaps never more fitting than when they described the head of Gaius Gracchus. 

Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus were brothers who lived during the late second century BCE at the beginning of the end of the Roman Republic. Both attempted to enact radical reforms meant to address wealth inequality and land shortages among more common Roman citizens. As tribunes—representatives of the common people—they fought repeatedly with the wealthy Senate. Eventually, both became examples of what happen to those who attempt to change a political system too quickly.  

Other people throughout history have met similar fates and are littered throughout history including Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King. Jr, Jesus of Nazareth, John F. Kennedy, Joan of Arc, Spartacus, and the list goes on. 

Like the tale of Robin Hood, Tiberius sought to redistribute the lands of the rich and give them to the poorer citizens of Rome in an attempt to rebuild the agricultural middle class. His attempt was made by bypassing the Senate. In response, the Senate hunted down Tiberius along with about 300 of his followers and executed them.

Gaius, the more radical of the two brothers, focused on transforming the broader political system after the violent deaths of Tiberius and his followers. His initiatives included establishing new colonies, funding public works projects and providing jobs for citizens, subsidizing affordable grain for the poor, and granting citizenship to Italian allies outside the city of Rome.

The Senate responded by issuing the Consultum Ultimum—effectively granting the emergency powers of martial law and authorizing the use of force to kill him. They further promised that  whoever returned Gaius’ head would receive it’s equivalent  weight in gold as a bounty.  

Fearing a fate similar to his  brother’s brutal death, Gaius ordered a slave to kill him. Thousands of his followers were also executed. Afterward, a man named Septimuleius allegedly decapitated Gaius’ corpse in order to claim the bounty. According to historical accounts,  before turning in the head, he removed the brain from the skull and filled it with molten lead to increase its weight before presenting it to authorities making his head worth more than its weight in gold. 

The deaths of the Gracchi brothers contributed to a violent upheaval within the Roman Republic. Political norms were changed, and political violence increasingly became the new normal. The death of the brothers and their reforms signalled the end to political compromise and began the fall of the Roman Republic making way for the Empire under Julius Caesar.

What can we learn from this? 

Sure, trying to change a political or economic system too quickly can be dangerous. We live in a time when wealth inequality has become more extreme than during the French Revolution, when the execution of the ruling class left a power void that was consumed by Napoleon. If we attempt to change the sociopolitical landscape  too quickly, we risk inviting the now foreseeable problems not unlike those of France and the Roman Republic. If pushed the other way where only a few possess wealth while most are struggling, then the tide may change too drastically for the American experiment to endure.

Hunter Thompson once wrote, “When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.” Unfortunately, our current system has gotten weird, and the pros are pushing the inequalities to a breaking point. There has been an increase of political violence, and political norms have shifted. It didn’t turn out well for the Roman Republic or the system run by the French aristocracy. Will the republic of the United States of America reap the same fate? 

That’s it for this week’s installment, this is your Lord of the Lore signing off. 

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