Plutarch, Tiberius and Caius Gracchus, Tiberius.11

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[1] ἐνστάσης δὲ τῆς ἡμέρας καὶ τὸν δῆμον αὐτοῦ καλοῦντος ἐπὶ τὴν ψῆφον, ἡρπάσθησαν ὑπὸ τῶν πλουσίων αἱ ὑδρίαι, καὶ τὰ γινόμενα πολλὴν εἶχε σύγχυσιν. οὐ μὴν ἀλλὰ τῶν περὶ Τιβέριον πλήθει βιάσασθαι δυναμένων καὶ συστρεφομένων ἐπὶ τοῦτο, Μάλλιος καὶ Φούλβιος, ἄνδρες ὑπατικοὶ, προσπεσόντες τῷ Τιβερίῳ καὶ χειρῶν ἁπτόμενοι καὶ δακρύοντες ἐδέοντο παύσασθαι.

[2] τοῦ δὲ καὶ τὸ μέλλον ὅσον οὔπω δεινὸν ἤδη συμφρονοῦντος, καὶ διʼ αἰδῶ τῶν ἀνδρῶν πυθομένου τί κελεύουσι πράττειν αὐτόν, οὐκ ἔφασαν ἀξιόχρεῳ εἶναι πρὸς τηλικαύτην συμβουλίαν, ἐπιτρέψαι δὲ τῇ βουλῇ κελεύοντες καὶ δεόμενοι συνέπεισαν.
ὡς δὲ οὐδὲν ἐπέραινεν ἡ βουλὴ συνελθοῦσα διὰ τοὺς πλουσίους ἰσχύοντας ἐν αὐτῇ, τρέπεται πρὸς ἔργον οὐ νόμιμον οὐδὲ ἐπιεικές, ἀφελέσθαι τῆς ἀρχῆς τὸν Ὀκτάβιον, ἀμηχανῶν ἄλλως ἐπαγαγεῖν τῷ νόμῳ τὴν ψῆφον.

[3] καὶ πρῶτον μὲν ἐδεῖτο φανερῶς αὐτοῦ, λόγους τε προσφέρων φιλανθρώπους καὶ χειρῶν ἁπτόμενος, ἐνδοῦναι καὶ χαρίσασθαι τῷ δήμῳ δίκαια μὲν ἀξιοῦντι, μικρὰ δὲ ἀντὶ μεγάλων πόνων καὶ κινδύνων ληψομένῳ. διωθουμένου δὲ τοῦ Ὀκταβίου τὴν ἔντευξιν ὑπειπὼν ὁ Τιβέριος ὡς οὐκ ἔστιν ἄρχοντας ἀμφοτέρους καὶ περὶ πραγμάτων μεγάλων ἀπʼ ἴσης ἐξουσίας διαφερομένους ἄνευ πολέμου διεξελθεῖν τὸν χρόνον, ἓν ἴαμα τούτου μόνον ὁρᾶν ἔφη τὸ παύσασθαι τῆς ἀρχῆς τὸν ἕτερον.

[4] καὶ περὶ αὐτοῦ γε προτέρου τὸν Ὀκτάβιον ἐκέλευσε τῷ δήμῳ ψῆφον ἀναδοῦναι καταβήσεσθαι γὰρ εὐθὺς ἰδιώτης γενόμενος, ἂν τοῦτο δόξῃ τοῖς πολίταις. τοῦ δὲ Ὀκταβίου μὴ θέλοντος αὐτὸς ἔφη περὶ ἐκείνου ψῆφον ἀναδώσειν, ἐὰν μὴ μεταγνῷ βουλευσάμενος.

Tiberius and Caius Gracchus. Plutarch. Cambridge, MA. 1921.

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Current edition Perseus

Tιβέριος καὶ Γάιος Γράκχοι (Greek) (Plutarch. Plutarch's Lives, Vol. X. Perrin, Bernadotte, editor. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1921.)

Translations (1)

Tiberius and Caius Gracchus Perseus (Plutarch. Plutarch's Lives, Vol. X. Perrin, Bernadotte, translator. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1921.) — Tiberius.11 focus

[1] When the appointed day was come and Tiberius was summoning the people to the vote, the voting urns were stolen away by the party of the rich, and great confusion arose. However, the supporters of Tiberius were numerous enough to force the issue, and were handing together for this purpose, when Manlius and Fulvius, men of consular dignity, fell down before Tiberius, clasped his hands, and with tears besought him to desist.

[2] Tiberius, conscious that the future was now all but desperate, and moved by respect for the men, asked them what they would have him do. They replied that they were not competent to advise in so grave a crisis, and urged him with entreaties to submit the case to the senate. To this Tiberius consented.
But the senate in its session accomplished nothing, owing to the prevailing influence of the wealthy class in it, and therefore Tiberius resorted to a measure which was illegal and unseemly, the ejection of Octavius from his office; but he was unable in any other way to bring this law to the vote.

[3] In the first place, however, he begged Octavius in public, addressing him with kindly words and clasping his hands, to give in and gratify the people, who demanded only their just rights, and would receive only a trifling return for great toils and perils. But Octavius rejected the petition, and therefore Tiberius, after premising that, since they were colleagues in office with equal powers and differed on weighty measures, it was impossible for them to complete their term of office without open war, said he saw only one remedy for this, and that was for one or the other of them to give up his office.

[4] Indeed, he urged Octavius to put to the people a vote on his own case first, promising to retire at once to private life if this should be the will of the citizens. But Octavius was unwilling, and therefore Tiberius declared that he would put the case of Octavius unless Octavius should change his mind upon reflection.

[1] In Africa, moreover, in connection with the planting of a colony on the site of Carthage, to which colony Caius gave the name Junonia (that is to say, in Greek, Heraea), there are said to have been many prohibitory signs from the gods. For the leading standard was caught by a gust of wind, and though the bearer clung to it with all his might, it was broken into pieces; the sacrificial victims lying on the altars were scattered by a hurricane and dispersed beyond the boundary-marks in the plan of the city, and the boundary-marks themselves were set upon by wolves, who tore them up and carried them a long way off.

[2] Notwithstanding this, Caius settled and arranged everything in seventy days all told, and then returned to Rome, because he learned that Fulvius was being hard pressed by Drusus, and because matters there required his presence. For Lucius Opimius, a man of oligarchical principles and influential in the senate, who had previously failed in a candidacy for the consulship (when Caius had brought forward Fannius and supported his canvas for the office),¹ now had the aid and assistance of many,

[3] and it was expected that he would be consul, and that as consul he would try to put down Caius, whose influence was already somewhat on the wane, and with whose peculiar measures the people had become sated, because the leaders who courted their favour were many and the senate readily yielded to them.

Plutarch Tiberius and Caius Gracchus Tiberius.11

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