Ancient States and Empires Part 28

He was a patrician, brought up at the plow, and in love with his Sabine farm. Yet he rose to the consulship, and even the censorship. He served in war under Marcellus, Fabius, and Scipio, and showed great ability as a soldier. He was as distinguished in the forum as in the camp and battle-field, having a bold address, pungent wit, and great knowledge of the Roman laws. He was the most influential political orator of his day.

He was narrow in his political ideas, conservative, austere, and upright; an enemy to all corruption and villainy, also to genius, and culture, and innovation. He was the protector of the Roman farmer, plain, homely in person, disdained by the ruling n.o.bles, but fearless in exposing corruption from any quarter, and irreconcilably at war with aristocratic coteries, like the Scipios and Flaminii. He was publicly accused twenty-four times, but he was always backed by the farmers, notwithstanding the opposition of the n.o.bles. He erased, while censor, the name of the brother of Flaminius from the roll of senators, and the brother of Scipio from that of the equites. He attempted a vigorous reform, but the current of corruption could only be stemmed for awhile.

The effect of the sumptuary laws, which were pa.s.sed through his influence, was temporary and unsatisfactory. No legislation has proved of avail against a deep-seated corruption of morals, for the laws will be avoided, even if they are not defied. In vain was the eloquence of the hard, arbitrary, narrow, worldly wise, but patriotic and stern old censor. The age of Grecian culture, of wealth, of banquets, of palaces, of games, of effeminate manners, had set in with the conquest of Greece and Asia. The divisions of society widened, and the seeds of luxury and pride were to produce violence and decay.

(M928) Still some political changes were effected at this time. The Comitia Centuriata was remodeled. The equites no longer voted first. The five cla.s.ses obtained an equal number of votes, and the freedmen were placed on an equal footing with free-born. Thus terminated the long conflict between patricians and plebeians. But although the right of precedence in voting was withdrawn from the equites, still the patrician order was powerful enough to fill, frequently, the second consulship and the second censorship, which were open to patricians and plebeians alike, with men of their own order. At this time the office of dictator went into abeyance, and was practically abolished; the priests were elected by the whole community; the public a.s.semblies interfered with the administration of the public property-the exclusive prerogative of the Senate in former times-and thus transferred the public domains to their own pockets. These were changes which showed the disorganization of the government rather than healthy reform. To this period we date the rise of demagogues, for a minority in the Senate had the right to appeal to the Comitia, which opened the way for wealthy or popular men to thwart the wisest actions and select incompetent magistrates and generals. Even Publius Scipio was not more distinguished for his arrogance and t.i.tle-hunting than for the army of clients he supported, and for the favor which he courted, of both legions and people, by his largesses of grain.

(M929) At this period, agriculture had reached considerable perfection, but Cato declared that his fancy farm was not profitable. Figs, apples, pears were cultivated, as well as olives and grapes-also shade-trees. The rearing of cattle was not of much account, as the people lived chiefly on vegetables, and fruits and corn. Large cattle were kept only for tillage.

Considerable use was made of poultry and pigeons-kept in the farm-yard.

Fish-ponds and hare-preserves were also common. The labor of the fields was performed by oxen, and a.s.ses for carriage and the turning of mills.

The human labor on farms was done by slaves. Vineyards required more expenditure of labor than ordinary tillage. An estate of one hundred jugera, with vine plantations, required one plowman, eleven slaves, and two herdsmen. The slaves were not bred on the estate, but were purchased.

They lived in the farm-buildings, among cattle and produce. A separate house was erected for the master. A steward had the care of the slaves.

The stewardess attended to the baking and cooking, and all had the same fare, delivered from the produce of the farm on which they lived. Great unscrupulousness pervaded the management of these estates. Slaves and cattle were placed on the same level, and both were fed as long as they could work, and sold when they were incapacitated by age or sickness. A slave had no recreations or holidays. His time was spent between working and sleeping. And when we remember that these slaves were white as well as black, and had once been free, their condition was hard and inhuman. No negro slavery ever was so cruel as slavery among the Romans. Great labors and responsibilities were imposed upon the steward. He was the first to rise in the morning, and the last to go to bed at night; but he was not doomed to constant labor, like the slaves whom he superintended. He also had few pleasures, and was obsequious to the landlord, who performed no work, except in the earlier ages. The small farmer worked himself with the slaves and his children. He more frequently cultivated flowers and vegetables for the market of Rome. Pastoral husbandry was practiced on a great scale, and at least eight hundred jugera were required. On such estates, horses, oxen, mules, and a.s.ses were raised, also herds of swine and goats. The breeding of sheep was an object of great attention and interest, since all clothing was made of wool. The shepherd-slaves lived in the open air, remote from human habitations, under sheds and sheep-folds.

(M930) The prices of all produce were very small in comparison with present rates, and this was owing, in part, to the immense quant.i.ties of corn and other produce delivered by provincials to the Roman government, sometimes gratuitously. The armies were supported by transmarine corn. The government regulated prices. In the time of Scipio, African wheat was sold as low as twelve ases for six _modii_-(one and a half bushel)-about sixpence. At one time two hundred and forty thousand bushels of Sicilian grain were distributed at this price. The rise of demagogism promoted these distributions, which kept prices down, so that the farmers received but a small reward for labors, which made, of course, the condition of laborers but little above that of brutes: when the people of the capital paid but sixpence sterling for a bushel and a half of wheat, or one hundred and eighty pounds of dried figs, or sixty pounds of oil, or seventy-two pounds of meat, or four and a half gallons of wine sold only for fivepence, or three-fifths of a denarius. In the time of Polybius, the traveler was charged for victuals and lodgings at an inn only about two farthings a day, and a bushel of wheat sold for fourpence. At such prices there was very little market for the farmer. Sicily and Sardinia were the real granaries of Rome. Thus were all the best interests of the country sacrificed to the unproductive population of the city. Such was the golden age of the republic-a state of utter misery and hardship among the productive cla.s.ses, and idleness among the Roman people-a state of society which could but lead to ruin. The farmers, without substantial returns, lost energy and spirit, and dwindled away. Their estates fell into the hands of great proprietors, who owned great numbers of slaves. They themselves were ruined, and sunk into an ign.o.ble cla.s.s. The cultivation of grain in Italy was gradually neglected, and attention was given chiefly to vines, and olives, and wool. The rearing of cattle became more profitable than tillage, and small farms were absorbed in great estates.

(M931) The monetary transactions of the Romans were preeminently conspicuous. No branch of commercial industry was prosecuted with more zeal than money-lending. The bankers of Rome were a great cla.s.s, and were generally rich. They speculated in corn and all articles of produce. Usury was not disdained even by the n.o.bles. Money-lending became a great system, and all the laws operated in favor of capitalists.

Industrial art did not keep pace with usurious calculations, and trades were concentrated in the capital. Mechanical skill was neglected in all the rural districts.

(M932) Business operations were usually conducted by slaves. Even money-lenders and bankers made use of them. Every one who took contracts for building, bought architect slaves. Every one who provided spectacles purchased a band of serfs expert in the art of fighting. The merchants imported wares in vessels managed by slaves. Mines were worked by slaves.

Manufactories were conducted by slaves. Everywhere were slaves.

(M933) While the farmer obtained only fourpence a bushel for his wheat, a penny a gallon for his wine, and fivepence for sixty pounds of oil, the capitalists, centered in Rome, possessed fortunes which were vastly disproportionate to those which are seen in modern capitals. Paulus was not reckoned wealthy for a senator, but his estate was valued at sixty talents, nearly 15,000, or $75,000. In other words, the daily interest of his capital was fifteen dollars, enough to purchase one hundred and eighty bushels of wheat-as much as a farmer could raise in a year on eight jugera-a farm as large as that of Cincinnatus. Each of the daughters of Scipio received as a dowry fifty talents, or $60,000. The value of this sum, in our money, when measured by the scale of wheat, or oil, or wine-allowing wheat now to be worth five shillings sterling a bushel-against fivepence in those times, would make gold twelve times more valuable then than now. And hence, Scipio left each of his daughters a sum equal to $720,000 of our money. In estimating the fortune of a Roman, by the prices charged at an inn per day, a penny would go further then than a dollar would now. But I think that gold and silver, in the time of Scipio, were about the same value as in England at the time of Henry VII., about twenty times our present standard.

(M934) Every law at Rome tended in its operation to the benefit of the creditor, and to vast acc.u.mulations of property; for the government being in the hands of the rich, as in England a century since, and in France before the Revolution, favored the rich at the expense of the poor. It became disgraceful at Rome to perform manual labor, and a wall separated the laboring cla.s.ses from the capitalists, which could not be pa.s.sed.

Industrial art took the lowest place in the scale of labor, and was in the hands of slaves. The traffic in money, and the farming of the revenue formed the mainstay and stronghold of the Roman economy. The free population of Italy declined, while the city of Rome increased. The loss was supplied by slaves. In the year 502 of the city, the Roman burgesses in Italy numbered two hundred and ninety-eight thousand men capable of bearing arms. Fifty years later, the number was only two hundred and fourteen thousand. The nation visibly diminished, and the community was resolved into masters and slaves. And this decline of citizens and increase of slaves were beheld with indifference, for pride, and cruelty, and heartlessness were the characteristics of the higher cla.s.ses.

(M935) With the progress of luxury, and the decline of the rural population, and the growth of disproportionate fortunes, residence in the capital became more and more coveted, and more and more costly. Rents rose to an unexampled height. Extravagant prices were paid for luxuries. When a bushel of corn sold for fivepence, a barrel of anchovies from the Black Sea cost 14, and a beautiful boy twenty-four thousand sesterces (246), more than a farmer's homestead. Money came to be prized as the end of life, and all kinds of shifts and devices were made to secure it.

Marriage, on both sides, became an object of mercantile speculation.

(M936) In regard to education, there was a higher development than is usually supposed, and literature and art were cultivated, even while the nation declined in real virtue and strength. By means of the Greek slaves, the Greek language and literature reached even the lower ranks, to a certain extent. "The comedies indicate that the humblest cla.s.ses were familiar with a sort of Latin, which could no more be understood without a knowledge of Greek, than Wieland's German without a knowledge of French."

Greek was undoubtedly spoken by the higher cla.s.ses, as French is spoken in all the courts of Europe. In the rudiments of education, the lowest people were instructed, and even slaves were schoolmasters. At the close of the Punic wars, both comedy and tragedy were among the great amus.e.m.e.nts of the Romans, and great writers arose, who wrote, however, from the Greek models. Livius translated Homer, and Naevius popularized the Greek drama.

Plautus, it is said, wrote one hundred and thirty plays. The tragedies of Ennius were recited to the latter days of the empire. The Romans did not, indeed, make such advance in literature as the Greeks, at a comparatively early period of their history, but their attainments were respectable when Carthage was destroyed.

CHAPTER x.x.xV.

THE REFORM MOVEMENT OF THE GRACCHI.

A new era in the history of Rome now commences, a period of glory and shame, when a great change took place in the internal structure of the State, now corrupted by the introduction of Greek and Asiatic refinements, and the vast wealth which rolled into the capital of the world.

(M937) "For a whole generation after the battle of Pydna, the Roman State enjoyed a profound calm, scarcely varied by a ripple here and there upon the surface. Its dominion extended over three continents; all eyes rested on Italy; all talents and all riches flowed thither; it seemed as if a golden age of peaceful prosperity and intellectual enjoyment of life had begun. The Orientals of this period told each other with astonishment of the mighty republic of the West. And such was the glory of the Romans, that no one usurped the crown, and no one glittered in purple dress; but they obeyed whomsoever from year to year they made their master, and there was among them neither envy nor discord."

(M938) So things seemed at a distance. But this splendid external was deceptive. The government of the aristocracy was hastening to its ruin.

There was a profound meaning, says Mommsen, in the question of Cato: "What was to become of Rome when she should no longer have any State to fear?"

All her neighbors were now politically annihilated, and the single thought of the aristocracy was how they should perpetuate their privileges. A government of aristocratic n.o.bodies was now inaugurated, which kept new men of merit from doing any thing, for fear they should belong to their exclusive ranks. Even an aristocratic conqueror was inconvenient.

(M939) Still opposition existed to this aristocratic regime, and some reforms had been carried out. The administration of justice was improved.

The senatorial commissions to the provinces were found inadequate. An effort was made to emanc.i.p.ate the Comitia from the prepondering influence of the aristocracy. The senators were compelled to renounce their public horse on admission to the Senate, and also the privilege of voting in the eighteen equestrian centimes. But there was the semblance of increased democratic power rather than the reality. All the great questions of the day turned upon the election of the curule magistracies, and there was sufficient influence among the n.o.bles to secure these offices. Young men from n.o.ble families crowded into the political arena, and claimed what once was the reward of distinguished merit. Powerful connections were indispensable for the enjoyment of political power, as in England at the time of Burke. A large body of clients waited on their patron early every morning, and the candidates for office used all those arts which are customary when votes were to be bought. The government no longer disposed of the property of burgesses for the public good, nor favored the idea among them that they were exempted from taxes. Political corruption reached through all grades and cla.s.ses. Capitalists absorbed the small farms, and great fortunes were the scandal of the times. Capital was more valued than labor. Italian farms depreciated from the conversion of tillage into pasture lands and parks, as in England in the present day.

Slavery inordinately increased from the captives taken in war. Western Asia furnished the greatest number of this miserable population, and Cretan and Cilician slave-hunters were found on all the coasts of Syria and Greece. Delos was the great slave-market of the world, where the slave-dealers of Asia Minor disposed of their wares to Italian speculators. In one day as many as ten thousand slaves were disembarked and sold. Farms, and trades, and mines were alike carried on by these slaves from Asia, and their sufferings and hardships were vastly greater than ever endured by negroes on the South Carolinian and Cuban plantations. But they were of a different race-men who had seen better days, and accustomed to civilization-and hence they often rose upon their masters. Servile wars were of common occurrence, Sicily at one time had seventy thousand slaves in arms, and when consular armies were sent to suppress the revolt, the most outrageous cruelties were inflicted. Twenty thousand men, at one time, were crucified in Sicily by Publius Rupilius.

(M940) At this crisis, when disproportionate wealth and slavery were the great social evils, Tiberius Gracchus arose-a young man of high rank, chivalrous, n.o.ble, and eloquent. His mother, Cornelia, was the daughter of Scipio Africa.n.u.s, and therefore belonged to the most exclusive of the aristocratic circles. Tiberius Gracchus was therefore the cousin of Scipio aemilia.n.u.s, under whom he served with distinction in Africa. He was seconded in his views of reform by some stern old patriots and aristocrats, who had not utterly forgotten the interests of the State, now being undermined. Appius Claudius, his father-in-law, who had been both consul and censor; Publius Mucius Scaevola, the great lawyer and founder of scientific jurisprudence; his brother, Publius Cra.s.sus Mucia.n.u.s; the Pontifex Maximus; Quintus Metellus, the conqueror of Macedonia-all men of the highest rank and universally respected, entered into his schemes of reform.

(M941) This patriotic patrician was elected tribune B.C. 134, at a time when political mismanagement, moral decay, the decline of burgesses, and the increase of slaves, were most apparent. So Gracchus, after entering upon his office, proposed the enaction of an agrarian law, by which all State lands, occupied by the possessors, without remuneration, should revert to the State, except five hundred jugera for himself, and two hundred and fifty for each son. The domain land thus resumed was to be divided into lots of thirty jugera, and these distributed to burgesses and Italian allies, not as free property, but inalienable leaseholds, for which they paid rent to the State. This was a declaration of war upon the great landholders. The proposal of Gracchus was paralyzed by the vote of his colleague, Marcus Octavius. Gracchus then, in his turn, suspended the business of the State and the administration of justice, and placed his seal on the public chest. The government was obliged to acquiesce.

Gracchus, also, as the year was drawing to a close, brought his law to the vote a second time. Again it was vetoed by Octavius. Gracchus then, at the invitation of the consuls, discussed the matter in the Senate; but the Senate, composed of great proprietors, would not yield. All const.i.tutional means were now exhausted, and Gracchus must renounce his reform or begin a revolution.

(M942) He chose the latter. Before the a.s.sembled people he demanded that his colleague should be deposed, which was against all the customs, and laws, and precedents of the past. The a.s.sembly, composed chiefly of the proletarians who had come from the country-the Comitia Tributa-voted according to his proposal, and Octavius was removed by the lictors from the tribune bench, and then the agrarian law was pa.s.sed by acclamation.

The Commissioners chosen to confiscate and redistribute the lands were Tiberius Gracchus, his brother Gaius, and his father-in-law Appius Claudius, which family selection vastly increased the indignation of the Senate, who threw every obstacle in the way.

(M943) The author of the law, fearing for his personal safety, no longer appeared in the forum without a retinue of three or four thousand men, another cause of bitter hatred on the part of the aristocracy. He also sought to be re-elected tribune, but the a.s.sembly broke up without a choice. The next day the election terminated in the same manner, and it was rumored in the city that Tiberius had deposed all the tribunes, and was resolved to continue in office without re-election. A tumult, originating with the Senate, was the result. A mob of senators rushed through the streets, with fury in their eyes and clubs in their hands. The people gave way, and Gracchus was slain on the slope of the capitol. The Senate officially sanctioned the outrage, on the ground that Tiberius meditated the usurpation of supreme power.

(M944) In regard to the author of this agrarian law, there is no doubt he was patriotic in his intentions, was public-spirited, and wished to revive the older and better days of the republic. I do not believe he contemplated the usurpation of supreme power. I doubt if he was ambitious, as Caesar was. But he did not comprehend the issues at stake, and the shock he was giving to the const.i.tution of his country. He was like Mirabeau, that other aristocratic reformer, who voted for the spoliation of the church property of France, on the ground, which that leveling sentimentalist Rousseau had advanced, that the church property belonged to the nation. But this plea, in both cases, was sophistical. It was, doubtless, a great evil that the property of the State had fallen into the hands of wealthy proprietors, as it was an evil that half the landed property of France was in possession of the clergy. But, in both cases, this property had been enjoyed uninterruptedly for centuries by the possessors, and, to all intents and purposes, was _private_ property. And this law of confiscation was therefore an encroachment on the rights of property, in all its practical bearings. It appeared to the jurists of that age to be an ejection of the great landholders for the benefit of the proletarians. The measure itself was therefore not without injustice, desirable as a division of property might be. But the mode to effect this division was incompatible with civilization itself. It was an appeal to revolutionary forces. It was setting aside all const.i.tutional checks and usages. It was a defiance of the Senate, the great ruling body of the State. It was an appeal to the people to overturn the laws. It was like a.s.sembling the citizens of London to override the Parliament. It was like the French revolution, when the a.s.sembly was dictated to by the clubs.

Robespierre may have been sincere and patriotic, but he was a fanatic, fierce and uncompromising. So was Gracchus. In setting aside his colleagues, to accomplish what he deemed a good end, he did evil. When this rich patrician collected the proletarian burgesses to decree against the veto of the tribune that the public property should be distributed among them, he struck a vital blow on the const.i.tution of his country, and made a step toward monarchy, for monarchy was only reached through the democracy-was only brought about by powerful demagogues. And hence the verdict of the wise and judicious will be precisely that, of the leading men of Rome at the time, even that of Cornelia herself: "Shall then our house have no end of madness? Have we not enough to be ashamed of in the disorganization of the State?"

(M945) The law of Tiberius Gracchus survived its author. The Senate had not power to annul it, though it might slay its author. The work of redistribution continued, even as the National a.s.sembly of France sanctioned the legislation of preceding revolutionists. And in consequence of the law, there was, in six years, an increase of burgesses capable of bearing arms, of seventy-six thousand. But so many evils attended the confiscation and redistribution of the public domain-so many acts of injustice were perpetrated-there was such gross mismanagement, that the consul Scipio aemilia.n.u.s intervened, and by a decree of the people, through his influence, the commission was withdrawn, and the matter was left to the consuls to adjudicate, which was virtually the suspension of the law itself. For this intervention Scipio lost his popularity, unbounded as it had been, even as Daniel Webster lost his prestige and influence when he made his 7th of March speech-the fate of all great men, however great, when they oppose popular feelings and interests, whether they are right or wrong. Scipio, the hero of three wars, not only lost his popularity, but his life. He was found murdered in his bed at the age of fifty-six.

"Scipio's a.s.sa.s.sination was the democratic reply to the aristocratic ma.s.sacre of Tiberius Gracchus." The greatest general of the age, a man of unspotted moral purity, and political unselfishness, and generous patriotism, could not escape the vengeance of a baffled populace, B.C.

129.

(M946) The distribution of land ceased, but the revolution did not stop.

The soul of Tiberius Gracchus "was marching on." A new hero appeared in his brother, Gaius Gracchus, nine years younger-a man who had no relish for vulgar pleasures,-brave, cultivated, talented, energetic, vehement. A master of eloquence, he drew the people; consumed with a pa.s.sion for revenge, he led them on to revolutionary measures. He was elected tribune in the year 123, and at once declared war on the aristocratic party, to which by birth he belonged.

He inaugurated revolutionary measures, by proposing to the people a law which should allow the tribune to solicit a re-election. He then, to gain the people and secure material power, enacted that every burgess should be allowed, monthly, a definite quant.i.ty of corn from the public stores at about half the average price. And he caused a law to be pa.s.sed that the existing order of voting in the Comitia Centuriata, according to which the five property cla.s.ses voted first, should be done away with, and that all the centuries should vote in the order to be determined by lot. He also caused a law to be pa.s.sed that no citizen should enlist in the army till seventeen, nor be compelled to serve in the army more than twenty years.

These measures all had the effect to elevate the democracy.

(M947) He also sought to depress the aristocracy, by dividing its ranks.

The old aristocracy embraced chiefly the governing cla.s.s, and were the chief possessors of landed property. But a new aristocracy of the rich had grown up, composed of speculators, who managed the mercantile transactions of the Roman world. The old senatorial aristocracy were debarred by the Claudian ordinance from mercantile pursuits, and were merely sleeping partners in the great companies, managed by the speculators. But the new aristocracy, under the name of the equestrian order, began at this time to have political influence. Originally, the equestrians were a burgess cavalry; but gradually all who possessed estates of four hundred thousand sesterces were liable to cavalry service, and became enrolled in the order, which thus comprehended the whole senatorial and non-senatorial n.o.ble society of Rome. In process of time, the senators were exempted from cavalry service, and were thus marked off from the list of those liable to do cavalry service. The equestrian order then, at last, comprehended the aristocracy of rich men, in contradistinction from the Senate. And a natural antipathy accordingly grew up between the old senatorial aristocracy and the men to whom money had given rank. The ruling lords stood aloof from the speculators; and were better friends of the people than the new moneyed aristocrats, since they, brought directly in contact with the people, oppressed them, and their greediness and injustice were not usually countenanced by the Senate. The two cla.s.ses of n.o.bles had united to put down Tiberius Gracchus; but a deep gulf still yawned between them, for no cla.s.s of aristocrats was ever more exclusive than the governing cla.s.s at Rome, confined chiefly to the Senate. The Roman Senate was like the House of Peers in England, when the peers had a preponderating political power, and whose property lay in landed estates.

(M948) Gracchus raised the power of the equestrians by a law which provided that the farming of the taxes raised in the provinces should be sold at auction at Rome. A gold mine was thus opened for the speculators.

He also caused a law to be pa.s.sed which required the judges of civil and criminal cases to be taken from the equestrians, a privilege before enjoyed by the Senate. And thus a senator, impeached for his conduct as provincial governor, was now tried, not as before, by his peer, but by merchants and bankers.

(M949) Gracchus, by the aid of the proletarians and the mercantile cla.s.s, then proceeded to the overthrow of the ruling aristocracy, especially in the functions of legislation, which had belonged to the Senate. By means of comitial laws and tribunician dictation, he restricted the business of the Senate. He meddled with the public chest by distributing corn at half its value; he meddled with the domains by sending colonies by decrees of the people; he meddled with provincial administration by overturning the regulations which had been made by the Senate. He also sought to re-enforce the Senate by three hundred new members from the equestrians elected by the comitia, a creation of peers which would have reduced the Senate to dependence on the chief of the State. But this he did not succeed in effecting.

(M950) It is singular that he could have carried these measures during his term of office, two years, for he was re-elected, with so little opposition-a proof of the power of the moneyed cla.s.ses, such, perhaps, as are now represented by the Commons of England. The great change he sought to effect was the re-election of magistrates-an unlimited tribuneship, which was truly Napoleonic. And he knew what he was doing. He was not a fanatic, but a Statesman of great ability, seeking to break the oligarchy, and transfer its powers to the tribunes of the people. He desired a firm administration, but resting on continuous individual usurpations. He was a political incendiary, like Mirabeau. He was the true founder of that terrible civic proletariate, which, flattered by the cla.s.ses above it, led to the usurpations of Sulla and Caesar. He is the author of the great change, which in one hundred years was effected, of transferring power from the Senate to an emperor. He furnished the tactics for all succeeding demagogues.

(M951) Great revolutionists are doomed to experience the loss of popularity, and Gracchus lost his by an attempt to extend the Roman franchise to the people of the provinces. The Senate and the mob here united to prevent what was ultimately effected. The Senate seized the advantage by inciting a rival demagogue, in the person of Marcus Livius Drusus, to propose laws which gave still greater privileges to the equestrians. The Senate bid for popularity, as English prime ministers have retained place, by granting more to the people than their rivals would have granted. The Livian laws, which released the proletarians from paying rent for their lands, were ratified by the people as readily as the Semp.r.o.nian laws had been. The foundation of the despotism of Gracchus was thus a.s.sailed by the Senate uniting with the proletarians. An opportunity was only wanted to effect his complete overthrow.

(M952) On the expiration of two years, Gracchus ceased to be tribune, and his enemy, Lucius Opimius, a stanch aristocrat, entered upon his office.

The attack on the ex-tribune was made by prohibiting the restoration of Carthage, which Gracchus had sought to effect, and which was a popular measure. On the day when the burgesses a.s.sembled with a view to reject the measure which Gracchus had previously secured, he appeared with a large body of adherents. An attendant on the consul demanded their dispersion, on which he was cut down by a zealous Gracchian. On this, a tumult arose.

Gracchus in vain sought to be heard, and even interrupted a tribune in the act of speaking, which was against an obsolete law. This offense furnished a pretense for the Senate and the citizens to arm. Gracchus retired to the temple of Castor, and pa.s.sed the night, while the capitol was filled with armed men. The next day, he fled beyond the Tiber, but the Senate placed a price upon his head, and he was overtaken and slain. Three thousand of his adherents were strangled in prison, and the memory of the Gracchi remained officially proscribed. But Cornelia put on mourning for her last son, and his name became embalmed in the hearts of the democracy.

(M953) Thus perished Gaius Gracchus, a wiser man than his brother-a man who attempted greater changes, and did not defy the const.i.tutional forms.

He was, undoubtedly, patriotic in his intentions, but the reforms which he projected were radical, and would have changed the whole structure of government. It was the consummation of the war against the patrician oligarchy. Whether wise or foolish, it is not for me to give an opinion, since such an opinion is of no account, and would imply equally a judgment as to the relative value of an aristocratical or democratic form of government, in a corrupt age of Roman society. This is a mooted point, and I am not capable of settling it. The efforts of the Gracchi to weaken the power of the ruling n.o.ble houses formed a precedent for subsequent reforms, or usurpations, as they are differently regarded, and led the way to the rule of demagogues, to be supplanted in time by that of emperors, with unbounded military authority.