25. Assassination Temporarily Solved a Problem for Rome’s Conservatives but Backfired On Them Big Time
Rome’s conservatives plotted Gaius Gracchus’ assassination, but he spared them the trouble by committing suicide when the situation became hopeless. The mob then massacred hundreds of his followers, and threw their bodies into the Tiber river. In the long run, the murders of the Gracchi brothers backfired upon the optimates and the patrician class.
The patricians were virtually exterminated during rounds of prescriptions that claimed the lives of thousands. First, the dictator Sulla went after populares following his victory in Rome’s first civil war, and murdered them by the thousand in terrifying proscriptions. The conservative victory was not permanent, however. A generation later, the pendulum swung when Octavian and Mark Antony went after the optimates in an even bloodier and more thorough prescription following their victory in a civil war against Julius Caesar’s assassins. Then Octavian ended the Roman Republic, and replaced it with the Roman Empire, which he ruled as its first emperor, with the title Augustus. What remained of the patrician class was gradually killed off, as they were caught up in or were falsely accused of conspiracies against various emperors, until they became virtually extinct.
