Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty

likely became more so by the second century BC . This was at the root of the problems that Tiberius Gracchus brought to the fore as tribune.
    As its expansion throughout the Mediterranean continued, Rome experienced an influx of great riches. But this bounty was captured mostly by a few wealthy families of senatorial rank, and inequality between rich and poor increased. Senators owed their wealth not only to their control of the lucrative provinces but also to their very large estates throughout Italy. These estates were manned by gangs of slaves, often captured in the wars that Rome fought. But where the land for these estates came from was equally significant. Rome’s armies during the Republic consisted of citizen-soldiers who were small landowners, first in Rome and later in other parts of Italy. Traditionally they fought in the army when necessary and then returned to their plots. As Rome expanded and the campaigns got longer, this model ceased to work. Soldiers were away from their plots for years at a time, and many landholdings fell into disuse. The soldiers’ families sometimes found themselves under mountains of debt and on the brink of starvation. Many of the plots were therefore gradually abandoned, and absorbed by the estates of the senators. As the senatorial class got richer and richer, the large mass of landless citizens gathered in Rome, often after being decommissioned from the army. With no land to return to, they sought work in Rome. By the late second century BC , the situation had reached a dangerous boiling point, both because the gap between rich and poor had widened to unprecedented levels and because there were hordes of discontented citizensin Rome ready to rebel in response to these injustices and turn against the Roman aristocracy. But political power rested with the rich landowners of the senatorial class, who were the beneficiaries of the changes that had gone on over the last two centuries. Most had no intention of changing the system that had served them so well.
    According to the Roman historian Plutarch, Tiberius Gracchus, when traveling through Etruria, a region in what is now central Italy, became aware of the hardship that families of citizen-soldiers were suffering. Whether because of this experience or because of other frictions with the powerful senators of his time, he would soon embark upon a daring plan to change land allocation in Italy. He stood for plebeian tribune in 133 BC , then used his office to propose land reform: a commission would investigate whether public lands were being illegally occupied and would redistribute land in excess of the legal limit of three hundred acres to landless Roman citizens. The three-hundred-acre limit was in fact part of an old law, though ignored and not implemented for centuries. Tiberius Gracchus’s proposal sent shockwaves through the senatorial class, who were able to block implementation of his reforms for a while. When Tiberius managed to use the power of the mob supporting him to remove another tribune who threatened to veto his land reform, his proposed commission was finally founded. The Senate, though, prevented implementation by starving the commission of funds.
    Things came to a head when Tiberius Gracchus claimed for his land reform commission the funds left by the king of the Greek city Pergamum to the Roman people. He also attempted to stand for tribune a second time, partly because he was afraid of persecution by the Senate after he stepped down. This gave the senators the pretext to charge that Tiberius was trying to declare himself king. He and his supporters were attacked, and many were killed. Tiberius Gracchus himself was one of the first to fall, though his death would not solve the problem, and others would attempt to reform the distribution of land and other aspects of Roman economy and society. Many would meet a similar fate. Tiberius Gracchus’s brother Gaius, for example, was also murdered by landowners, after he took the mantle from his brother.
    These tensions would surface again periodically during the next century—for example, leading to the “Social War” between 91 BC and 87 BC . The aggressive defender of the senatorial interests, Lucius Cornelius Sulla, not only viciously suppressed the demands for change but also severely curtailed the powers of the plebeian tribune. The same issues would also be a central factor in the support that Julius Caesar received from the people of Rome in his fight