Posted by: Charlotte in Ancient History, Ancient Rome, History Blog, Personalities in History, World History
Possibly one of the biggest mistakes of the Roman Republic was that they tried to govern an Empire with the same legislation they had used for a city state. With an increase in population but a decrease in eligible military soldiers, the Republican power began to weaken. This was particularly evident with during the tribuneship of the brothers Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus.
The wealthy aristocratic class controlled the majority of the state-owned land leaving nothing for the common farmers to live off. When this happened the rural poor moved into Rome and became the urban poor, with no money and no skills for employment. Whether for self interest or because he actually cared, when elected to the tribuneship of the people in 133 B.C, Tiberius tried to give the farmers back their land. He proposed new legislation which limited the amount of state-owned land one family could rent from the government to 750 ha. Then Tiberius proposed to give the returned land to the poor farmers, changing it from state-owned to private-owned land. However, in order to soothe the aristocratic population he planned to buy the extra land from
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