How Did Tiberius Lose His Life

Appian once claimed “Tiberius lost his life because he followed up an excellent plan in too lawless a way”. Tiberius Gracchus proposed a plan which would redistribute land amongst Roman citizens. Though controversial, Tiberius’s plan was brilliant and well thought. However, the actions Tiberius took to have his plan made into a law were dishonorable and unruly. When Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus became tribune, one of his first actions were proposing a law which would have regulated the use of the public lands of the Roman people. Rome had fought countless wars against their neighbors. Thus, Rome had acquired a lot of land. “The core of the measure was…that limited to 500 iugera (about 300 acres or 120 hectarces) the amount of “public” land that a single individual could exploit merely by occupying it.”(Boatwright, 87) Tiberius wanted to give citizens a maximum amount of land deemed public to occupy. Along with this, he proposed the excess was to be confiscated and then distributed into small portions amongst citizens who didn’t own any land. With the increase in
He proposed the law in hopes that it would aid the many troubles of Rome at the time. He wanted to assist the poor and ease tensions and instability in the urban regions. However, his actions to safeguard this law were unconstitutional and unprecedented. He looked past the law in order to get his own way without much thought of others. These selfish notions are what led to his death and downfall. Even with all of this in consideration, his rivals’ approach to hinder his reelection were even more lawless than Tiberius’ actions in attempts to preserve the agrarian law. Despite the fact that the Romans were aggressive, their actions of attacking and killing Tiberius and his supporters were unjustifiable. There are other ways to stop Tiberius’s reelection. It is possible that voters would decide against reelecting him, which could have prevented his