Note 54 — LIFE OF TIBERIUS GRACCHUS.

Marcus Octavius, who was one of the tribuni plebis B.C. 133, was a descendant of Cneius Octavius, quæstor B.C. 230. Caius Octavius, better known as Caius Julius Cæsar Octavianus and as the Emperor Augustus, was a descendant of Caius the second son of Cneius. Cicero, whose opinion about the Gracchi changed with the changed circumstances of his own life, commends the opposition of Marcus Octavius to the measures of Gracchus. (Brutus, c. 25.) He also says that Octavius was a good speaker.

The institution of the tribuni plebis is one of the most important events in the history of Rome, and the struggle between the plebeians headed by their tribunes, and the nobility, is the development of the constitutional history of Rome. Though there were tribunes in the kingly period, the establishment of the tribuni plebis as the guardians of the plebs is properly referred to the year B.C. 494, when the plebs seceded to the Mons Sacer or the Sacred Mount. On this occasion the patricians consented to the election of two tribunes from the plebs. (Livius, 2, c. 33: compare Livius, 2, 56. 58.) The number was afterwards increased to ten, and this number continued unaltered. Only a plebeian could be elected tribune. The persons of the tribunes were declared to be sacred (sacrosancti). Their powers were originally limited, as above stated, to the protection of the rights of the plebs and of the individuals of the plebeian body against the oppression of the patrician magistrates. It is not possible within the compass of a note to trace the history of the gradual increase of the tribunitian power (tribunitia potestas): such a subject is a large chapter in the history of Rome. Incidental notices often appear in Plutarch’s Lives, which will help a reader to form a general notion of the nature of the magistracy, and the effect which it had on the development of the Roman constitution. The article Tribuni in Smith’s Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities gives an outline of the functions of the tribuni plebis.

Very soon after the institution of the tribunate, the nobles learned the art of destroying the power of the college of tribunes by gaining over one or more of the members; for, as Plutarch states, the opposition (intercessio) of a single tribune rendered the rest of his colleagues powerless.