헬레니즘 시대의 스토아사상과 현실정치

Abstract

This article describes the Stoic economic ethics and the mixed, balanced constitution (the mikte), and explores the influence of those Stoic economic and political thoughts on Tiberius Gracchus' agrarian reform. At the time of the reform, the Senate was in a deep conflict between conservatives and reformers over political power. The two camps had different views on the property. The root of their differences goes back to the debate between Diogenes and Antipater over private property in the mid second century B.C. Diogenes asserted that if one occupied ager publicus (public land), the land could be recognized as his private property. Antipater, however, took an opposit position. Conservatives in the Senate accepted the argument of Panaetius who got Diogenes's idea of private property while the reformers went along with Blossius who developed the idea of Antipater's. According to Blossius, because ager publicus was a common wealth of Roman people, the government could expropriate the lands owned by powerful men for redistribution. Based on the idea of Blossius, Tiberius Gracchus developed and launched Lex Sempronia agraria. Another leading member of 'Scipionic circle', Polybius accentuated that the Roman Republican Government was comprised of three forms of kingship, aristocracy, and democracy, and he further praised highly that the very mixed constitution had the peculiarity of 'checking and balancing' which developed Rome into the most strong and wealthy state in the Mediterranean world. Under the influence of Polybius' theory of 'the mikte', Tiberius Gracchus aimed at restoring 'the sturdy yeomanry' of the Roman citizens by redistributing the public lands which were then in the hands of the rich infringing the law. On the contrary, the extreme conservatives such as Scipio Nasica thought Gracchus aimed at tyranny on the basis of mob rule, the worst form of government. In short, in the struggle of political justice and land problem, the Stoic thoughts of Diogenes, Panaetius, Polybius gained the final victory over those of Antipater, Blossius, and so the real politician, Tiberius Gracchus, became a victim of political assassination.