Gracchus, the name of a Roman family, of the gens Sempronia, which contributed several famous citizens to the state: (1) Tiberius Sempronius, a distinguished opponent of Hannibal in the second Punic war, who fell in battle against Mago, 212 B.C., and was honoured by Hannibal with a splendid funeral. (2) Tiberius Sempronius, the father of the two tribunes whose fame has overshadowed all the others. He was born about 210 B.C., filled successively all the high offices of state, conquered the Celtiberi, and by his kindly treatment of the Spaniards earned their lasting gratitude. He married Cornelia, the youngest daughter of P. Scipio Africanus, who bore him twelve children, of whom all died in youth save a daughter, Cornelia, who married P. Scipio Africanus the younger, and the two illustrious sons whose history follows.
TIBERIUS SEMPRONIUS GRACCHUS was born about 168 B.C., and was educated with great care by his excellent mother, his father having died while he was yet very young. He was already a distinguished soldier when in 137 he served as questor to the army of the consul Mancinus in Spain, where the remembrance of his father's honour, after forty years, enabled him to gain better terms for the 20,000 Roman soldiers who lay at the mercy of the Numantines. But the peace was repudiated at Rome, and Mancinus was stripped naked and sent back to the Numantines, as if in that way the treaty could be rendered void. The hopeless poverty in which thousands of the Roman citizens were sunk now began to weigh upon the mind of Gracchus, and ere long he plunged into an agitation for reform to which he was soon to sacrifice his life. Elected tribune of the people in 133, he endeavoured to reimpose the agrarian law of Licinius Stolo, and after violent opposition on the part of the aristocratic party, who had bribed his colleague M. Octavius Cæcina, he succeeded in passing a bill to that effect. Tiberius Gracchus, his brother Cains, and his father-in-law Appius Clandius were appointed triumvirs to enforce its provisions. Meantime Attalus, king of Pergamum, died, and bequeathed all his wealth to the Roman people. Gracchus therefore proposed that this should be divided among the poor, to enable them to procure agricultural implements and to stock their newly-acquired farms. It is said that he also intended to extend the franchise, and to receive Italian allies as Roman citizens. But fortune turned against the good tribune. He was accused of having violated the sacred character of the tribuneship by the deposition of Cæcina, and thousands of the fickle mob deserted their champion and benefactor. The selfish and unscrupulous aristocrats formed a ring for his destruction, a bad eminence in which belonged to P. Corn. Scipio Nasica. In the midst of the next election for the tribuneship Tiberius Gracchus with some hundreds of his friends was foully murdered.
CAIUS SEMPRONIUS GRACCHUS was nine years younger than his brother, and had greater natural powers and wider aims. His brother's death occurred while he was serving in Spain under Scipio Africanus, and deterred him for some years from entering into public life, but at length he unexpectedly returned to Rome, urged by his brother's shade to take up his mission. He stood for the tribuneship, and was elected in 123, and a second time the year after. His first measure was to renew his brother's agrarian law, which had by the machinations of the nobles been kept in abeyance. With passionate earnestness he devoted himself to the cause of the poor, whose immediate misery he relieved by employing them upon new roads throughout all parts of Italy. But not all his noble devotion to the real good of Rome could save him from his brother's fate. By an intrigue of the senatorial party his colleague M. Livius Drusus was bribed to undermine the influence of Cains by far surpassing him in the liberality of his public measures, and by his benefits to the commons, and consequently Cains was rejected from a third tribuneship. At the expiry of his term the senate began to repeal his enactments. Caius appearing in the Forum to make opposition, a fearful riot ensued, in which it is said as many as 3000 of his partisans were slain. Caius held aloof from the fight, but was at length compelled to seek safety in flight. He escaped to the grove of the Furies with a single slave, who first slew his master and then himself. The people saw too late the folly of which they had been guilty in abandoning their best friend in the hour of need, and endeavoured to atone for their crime by erecting statues to the two brothers, by declaring sacred the spots where their blood had been shed, and by offering sacrifices to them as to deities. Their mother survived them long, and upon her tomb the Roman people inscribed the words, 'Cornelia, mother of the Gracchi.' See the articles AGRARIAN LAWS and ROME.