The Gracchi

3 Apr, 2025 930 History of the Ancient World

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the brothers Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus whose names are entwined with the end of Rome’s Republic and the rise of the Roman Emperors. As tribunes, they brought popular reforms to the Roman Republic at the end of the 2nd century BC. Tiberius (c163-133BC) brought in land reform so every soldier could have his farm, while Gaius (c154-121BC) offered cheap grain for Romans and targeted corruption among the elites. Those elites saw the reforms as such a threat that they had the brothers killed: Tiberius in a shocking murder led by the Pontifex Maximus, the high priest, in 133BC and Gaius 12 years later with the senate’s approval. This increase in political violence was to destabilise the Republic, forever tying the Gracchi to the question of why Rome’s Republic gave way to the Rome of Emperors.

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Guests

  • Professor Catherine Steel 6 episodes
    Professor of Classics at the University of Glasgow
  • Professor Federico Santangelo No other episodes
    Professor of Ancient History at Newcastle University
  • Kathryn Tempest 2 episodes
    Lecturer in Roman History at the University of Leicester

Reading list

  • The Civil Wars
    Appian (trans. John Carter) (Penguin Classics, 2005) Google Books →
  • A Companion to the Political Culture of the Roman Republic
    Valentina Arena, Jonathan R. W. Prag and Andrew Stiles (Wiley-Blackwell, 2022) Google Books →
  • Costruire la Memoria: Uso e abuso della storia fra tarda repubblica e primo principato
    R. Cristofoli, A. Galimberti and F. Rohr Vio (eds.) (L'Erma di Bretschneider, 2017) Google Books →
  • Cornelia: Mother of the Gracchi
    Suzanne Dixon (Routledge, 2007) Google Books →
  • The Background to the Grain Law of Gaius Gracchus
    Peter Garnsey and Dominic Rathbone (Journal of Roman Studies, 1985)
  • Crises and the Roman Empire
    O. Hekster, G. de Kleijn and D. Slootjes (eds.) (Brill, 2007) Google Books →
  • Rome and the Making of a World State, 150 BCE-20 CE
    Josiah Osgood (Cambridge University Press, 2018) Google Books →
  • Rome in Crisis
    Plutarch (trans. Ian Scott-Kilvert and Christopher Pelling) (Penguin Classics, 2010) Google Books →
  • Roman Lives
    Plutarch (trans. Robin Waterfield, ed. Philip A. Stadter) (Oxford University Press, 2008) Google Books →
  • Aristocrats and Agriculture in the Middle and Late Republic
    Nathan Rosenstein (Journal of Roman Studies, 2008)
  • The Lex Repetundarum and the Political Ideas of Gaius Gracchus
    A. N. Sherwin-White (Journal of Roman Studies, 1982)
  • The End of the Roman Republic, 146 to 44 BC: Conquest and Crisis
    Catherine Steel (Edinburgh University Press, 2013) Google Books →
  • The Gracchi
    David Stockton (Oxford University Press, 1979) Google Books →

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Programme ID: m0029jjb

Episode page: bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0029jjb

Auto-category: 937.05 (History of ancient world; Italy; Roman Republic)