A History of Rome During the Later Republic and Early Principate

In 133 BCE, Tiberius Gracchus stood before the Roman people and proposed land reforms that would have broken the stranglehold of the aristocratic elite. Within two years, he was dead, beaten to death in the Forum by senators who called themselves defenders of the state. A. H. J. Greenidge's landmark history traces the explosive decades that followed: the economic desperation of Rome's peasant farmers, the crushing burden of debt, the growing chasm between rich and poor, and the desperate attempts at reform that would ultimately fail. This is the story of the Gracchi brothers, whose visions of redistribution made them martyrs to popular anger and targets of aristocratic violence. It is also the story of Marius, the general who would transform Rome's armies and, in doing so, reshape the political order entirely. Written in 1904 but still essential reading, Greenidge brings scholarly precision to a period when the Roman Republic began its long, violent death. For anyone who wants to understand how the world's most powerful republic consumed itself, this is where the story begins.