The Tribunes

The Gracchi: Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus, the brothers who invented socialism. As tribunes of the plebeians - the common people of Rome - the Gracchi attempted to redistribute the wealth of the patricians - the Roman ruling class - among the city's landless citizens. Both brothers were assassinated for their pains. This poem was written in response to the lively exchange between a poet calling himself "Gaius" and the poet/critic, Scott Hamilton, which can be found here.


The Tribunes

My brother, Tiberius, knew them:
seated in the tavern corners,
ostentatious in their borrowed poverty.
(They were all from good families.)

Down among the plebes,
not to talk and argue like free men,
but to observe – at a distance.
Consuming the common man’s dusty world
with the same fastidiousness
as they drained their cups
of cheap wine.

Leaving their tables
just before dawn.
Brushing from stained tunics
the last greasy crumbs of their
symposium populare.

I recall their shadows

stumbling across graffiti-covered walls.
Nervously eyeing the toughs.
(Though they had little to fear from them
– possessing nothing any honest thief
would want to steal!)

Until, safe at last

in their hilltop villas,
nostrils purged of plebeian sweat,
and still tumescent

in the afterglow of danger;
they’d scratch out

their condescending
‘Poems to the People’.

Liars!

Their cudgels rose and fell
alongside the rest
when the Senate’s fury
felled Tiberius for

daring to distribute
their patrician fathers'

bloated patrimonies
among the wretched

subjects of their

poetry.

Chris Trotter
12 March 2010