Lucius Equitius insitivus Gracchus

FLORIS, PIERGIORGIO

2009-01-01

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Abstract

In the paper is taken into consideration the figure of Lucius Equitius regarding the identification of his personal status and the claim he advanced in the final years of the second century BC to be the son of Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, the famous tribunus plebis dead in 132 BC. The claim of Equitius, who probably from the beginning was tied to Lucius Apuleius Saturninus, didn’t left Roman public opinion indifferent at all; instead it aroused great interest and concern in the different components of the city which then faced each other and quickly turned in a real case. We also try to understand how a person of obscure origin as Equitius could procure himself the favour of part of the Roman population, relying only on his claim of descent from Tiberius Gracchus and how he, although this claim was frustrated publicly on several occasions, could still maintain a certain popular support which eventually won him the election to the tribunate.