Countries are trying to prevent the accumulation of wealth of technological millionaires. Ancient Rome tried it too

The concentration of wealth in a few hands that we see today in technological billionaires is not a new phenomenon. More than two thousand years ago, the Ancient Rome faced exactly the same dilemma that worries today to governments around the world: a few rich people accumulated land and resources, while the majority of citizens became impoverished to the point of bordering on misery.

A young politician named Tiberius Sempronius Graceither He thought he found a solution to redistribute the wealth accumulated by the Roman patricians: his idea cost him his life.

In the middle of the second century BC, after destroying Carthage and Corinth, Rome had become the dominant power of the Mediterranean. However, this expansion it didn’t make everyone rich equally.

For the humblest Roman peasants, it brought a devastating social crisis. The small landowners, who for centuries had cultivated their lands and served in the Roman legions, were displaced by large estates exploited with slave labor brought from the new conquered territories.

The long military campaigns had prevented the soldiers peasants return in time to harvest their lands, which affected the economies of their families. Furthermore, upon their return they discovered that their lands had been expropriated by millionaire aristocrats from Rome.

Tiberius Sempronius Gracchusgrandson of Scipio Africanus, the general that defeated to the Carthaginian Hannibaland heir to one of the most powerful families in Rome, was guaranteed a brilliant political future. However, in the year 133 BC, being elected tribune of the plebs, he decided to propose an agrarian reform with which he attempted to redistribute the enormous fortunes that Roman landowners had accumulated. Something similar to what is trying to make California and other countries all over the world.

With this measure, Gracchus was directly confronting his own people since he himself came from a wealthy family. Its law established that no citizen could own more than 500 iugera (about 125 hectares) of public land, the so-called ager publicus.

The plots that exceed that limit will be expropriated and handed over to landless peasants. A measure that, de facto, ended with the large estates in the hands of the richest romans. The objective of the measure was twofold: to restore economic solvency to the Roman people and to ensure that Rome had enough citizens with assets to nourish its legions, since only the owners They could serve as soldiers.

Making friends among the richest

According to the ancient sources of Plutarch, written between the years 96 AD and 117 AD, Tiberius did not seek to start a revolution against the rich, but to restore old republican laws that had fallen into disuse.

To defend his reform, Tiberius gave speeches in front of the impoverished people of Rome. In one of his most famous, which was collected by Plutarchthe young tribune declared: “Their generals deceive them when, in battle, they encourage them to fight for the temples of their gods and for the tombs of their fathers. This is because, of a large number of Romans, not one has his own domestic altar or family tomb. They fight and die to feed the opulence and luxury of others, and, when they claim to be masters of the entire world, they do not even own a piece of land.”

The Senate, dominated by large landowners, tried to block the reform by all means. They persuaded another tribune named Octavius ​​to veto the proposal, but Tiberius responded with a bold and unprecedented maneuver: he called for the assembly to remove Octavius ​​from office for acting against the interests of the people.

The reform was finally approved and applied by distributing the large estates of the landowners among the Roman peasants. However, when Tiberius attempted to run for a second term as tribune, a practice then considered contrary to Roman tradition, the aristocracy decided he had gone too far.

According to the historical documentationduring the elections in the Capitol, a group of senators led by the maximum pontiff Scipio Násica, a relative of Tiberius himself, burst in with a group of followers armed with clubs and with the legs of chairs torn from the Curia. In the sacred place, where swords were not allowed, They beat Tiberius to death and about 300 of his followers. His body was thrown into the Tiber River without allowing his family to bury him.

Ten years later, in 123 BC, Tiberius’ brother, Gaius Sempronius Gracchustook up the cause started by his brother with an even more ambitious program.

Caius approved the Lex Frumentariawhich forced the State to distribute wheat among the plebs at prices below the market, laying the foundations of the food subsidy system that would last for centuries.

He also proposed extending Roman citizenship to the Italic peoples who fought in Rome’s wars but did not enjoy its benefits. The Senate used populist tactics, warning that Italian foreigners would reduce aid to Roman citizens, and when Caius lost popular supportwas pursued to the Aventine Hill near Rome, where he ordered his faithful slave Philocrates to assassinate him. Nearly 3,000 of his supporters died with him.

The legacy that survived violence

Although the Senate murdered both brothers, it could not erase their legacy. The reforms that the Gracchi had proposed would finally be implemented decades later by order of Julius Caesar, who had a powerful army that protected him from suffering the same fate.

The historians Plutarch and Appian left record of what happened with the Gracchus brothers centuries later, both agreed to portray Tiberius as a politician with solid ideas who looked to Rome’s past to find solutions to the problems suffered by his people.

Paradoxically, although the story of the Gracchus brothers happened more than 2,000 years ago, we could find very similar references today with just a quick glance at the news.

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Image | Wikimedia Commons (Lodovico Pogliaghi, Guillaume Rouille, Eugene Guillaume)