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Often appears with: property, inheritance, and title · marriage and betrothal · justice as a virtue · cleomenes · caius gracchus · agis · volunteer slave soldiers · trade, markets, and merchants · temperance and self-mastery · straits of messina · serpent omen · senate debates pursuit
Usually: narrative (4) · reflection (3) · ambition and its cost (3) · the fall of the great (3) · detachment (3) · injustice endured (2) · skepticism (2) · wonder (2) · commentary or gloss (1) · crisis of belief (1)
“...when they fixed their eyes on the man himself, and the contemptible conduct to which he condescended, they could scarcely believe that so much excellence and baseness could exist in one and the same breast.” Polybius, The Histories of Polybius, Vol. 2 (of 2) · insight
“No one was likely to make any inquiry for Demetrius or those who had gone with him.” Polybius, The Histories of Polybius, Vol. 2 (of 2) · observation
“Close reckoning and legal exactness were for strangers; with relations and friends he would do his best to behave straightforwardly and liberally.” Polybius, The Histories of Polybius, Vol. 2 (of 2) · precept
“Permission was given him to act in the business as he thought for the interest of the state, and, accordingly, before he engaged with the enemy, he declared that the time was now arrived for obtaining that liberty which they had so long hoped for.” Titus Livius (Livy), The History of Rome, Books 09 to 26 · precept
Tiberius Gracchus, leading volunteer slave troops from Luceria into Beneventum, rouses them with promises of liberty and a pitched battle, while Hannibal’s Hanno threatens Beneventum from the other side.
which the consul used in every thing he did in order to preoccupy Nola. Having twice already made the attempt unsuccessfully, he was slower to place confidence in the Nolans. 14. During the same time, the consul, Fabius, came to attempt Casilinum, which was occupied by a Carthaginian garrison; and, as if by concert, Hanno approached Beneventum on one side from the Bruttians, with a large body of foot and horse, whil…
Plutarch shifts to the Roman Gracchi, explaining that Tiberius Gracchus died after a serpents’ omen involving Cornelia, leaving twelve children, and describing Cornelia’s refusal to accept King Ptolemy’s crown.
TIBERIUS GRACCHUS Having completed the first two narratives, we now may proceed to take a view of misfortunes, not less remarkable, in the Roman couple, and with the lives of Agis and Cleomenes, compare these of Tiberius and Caius. They were the sons of Tiberius Gracchus, who, though he had been once censor, twice consul, and twice had triumphed, yet was more renowned and esteemed for his virtue than his honors. U…
After Tiberius Gracchus’s death, the senate allows land division and replaces the commissioner, but people attack the chief priest Nasica, driving him from Italy until he dies near Pergamum.
had not been for the people's good." Blossius at this time was pardoned, and afterwards went away to Aristonicus in Asia, and when Aristonicus was overthrown and ruined, killed himself. The senate, to soothe the people after these transactions, did not oppose the division of the public lands, and permitted them to choose another commissioner in the room of Tiberius. So they elected Publius Crassus, who was Gracchus…
Plutarch compares the Gracchi with Agis and Cleomenes, contrasting virtue and wealth, differing political reforms, and their courage in civil conflict, arguing Tiberius was most virtuous while Caius fell short of Cleomenes.
would have appeared a crime of a strange nature to him, who esteemed it a piece of covetousness to possess, though never so justly gotten, greater riches than his neighbors. Their political actions, also, and the state revolutions they attempted, were very different in magnitude. The chief things in general that the two Romans commonly aimed at, were the settlement of cities and mending of highways; and, in particu…
Plutarch argues that Tiberius and Caius were driven by glory and honors and that faction and rich-power pushed them into rash quarrels; he concludes Tiberius excelled in virtue, Agis made fewer mistakes, and Caius was less bold than Cleomenes.
who is worthy to be compared with Lycurgus, and it is clear enough that in the public measures of Cleomenes various acts of considerable audacity and lawlessness may be found. Those, therefore, who incline to blame their characters, may observe, that the two Grecians were disturbers even from their youth, lovers of contest, and aspirants to despotic power; that Tiberius and Caius by nature had an excessive desire af…
After the festival, Tiberius Gracchus’s envoys arrive and are received cordially by Antiochus, who shares lavish accommodations while privately harboring intense resentment against the Romans.
lily, all of extraordinary fragrancy. Public banquets were also given, at which couches were prepared, sometimes for a thousand and sometimes for fifteen hundred, with the utmost splendour and costliness. The whole of the arrangements were made personally by the king. He rode on an inferior horse by the side of the procession, ordering one part to advance, and another to halt, as occasion required; so that, if his d…
Polybius criticizes the Rhodians for funding teachers from public money: after receiving a corn endowment from Eumenes, they use its interest for schooling rather than relying on private resources.
[Sidenote: Commissioners appointed for Greece and Asia, B.C. 162.] +23.+ At Rome, during the whole of the following day, no one was likely to make any inquiry for Demetrius or those who had gone with him. For those of his household who stayed in the city supposed him to have gone to Cerceii; and those at Anagnia were expecting him to come there too. The flight from Rome, therefore, was entirely unremarked; until one…
Scipio’s banker was ordered to pay Scipio’s adoptive-cousins, the daughters of Great Scipio, their full dowry of fifty talents each within ten months, provoking husbands Tiberius Gracchus and Scipio Nasica to return in silence.
[Sidenote: Scipio’s liberality to his cousins, sisters to his adoptive father.] +13.+ The next instance was his conduct to the daughters of the Great Scipio, sisters to his adoptive father.[196] When he took the inheritance he was bound to pay them their portion. For their father covenanted to give each of his two daughters a marriage portion of fifty talents. Half of this their mother paid down at once to their hus…