and temples against the enemy; for out of so many Romans not one has a family altar or ancestral tomb; but they fight to maintain the luxury and wealth of others, and they die with the title of lords of the earth, without possessing a single clod to call their own." "The census-lists of the Roman burgesses," says Dr. Mommsen, "furnished the commentary on these words.† If matters were to go on at this rate, the burgess-body would resolve itself into planters and slaves; and the Roman state might at length, as was the case with the Parthians, purchase its soldiers in the slave-market."

Gracchus viewed all this with the eyes of a soldier and a statesman, as well as of an ardent friend of liberty. His aim was to restore their rights to the suffering Italians and the defrauded Roman citizens; to put an end to the miseries and social dangers involved in the vast gangs of foreign slaves, and to raise up once more a class of peasant possessors, whose labour should at once restore productiveness to the soil and rear a hardy race capable of defending it. "A country in which the land is much divided will always have a large supply of the best material for war. No other man can endure so much as he who has turned the soil and reaped the harvest. This was the opinion of the Censor Cato." It is almost superfluous to point out that such a class could not be supplied by the emancipation of the slaves, a measure of philanthropy totally foreign to Roman ideas. Even had they been as fit for freedom as the recent events in Sicily had proved them unfit, their liberation and settlement on the public lands would have been the very means of shutting out the poor Romans and Latins whom it was intended to reinstate.

Thus far the object in view was clear: but the means of effecting it involved questions of principle as well as policy, which ultimately proved fatal. It was an incontestable truth, that the lands about to be reclaimed from the great possessors had never ceased to be the property of the Roman people. But they had been held by long prescription; many of the present owners had acquired them by bona fide purchase; and the boundaries were so indefinite as to create great difficulty in distinguishing, not only between the holdings of different possessors, but the public from private land.

Long, Decline, &c., vol. i. p. 176.

+ The following are the returns for a series of years, beginning with the highest point to which the numbers rose after the Second Punic War:-338,314 in B.C. 159; 324,600 in B.C. 154; 322,000 in B.C. 147; 317,823 in B.C. 131.-History of Rome, vol. ii. pp. 64, 65. Long, vol. i. p. 172.

The process of inquisition and ejectment must of course be gradual, keeping Italy in a constant ferment, and ever raising new causes of discontent. In fine, whatever might be the legal or moral rights of the actual possessors, they were sure to regard the measure as one of downright spoliation, and to resist it with all the power of their wealth and influence, of which the Senate itself was the organ.

Scarcely less were the difficulties that sprang from those who were to be benefited by the measure. The Italian farmers, who were the chief sufferers, were not those who made their voice heard in the Forum; nor were the populace, who claimed the first share in the new division, the old Roman people, from whom the domain was called Public. The change already noticed in the constitution of the Comitia of the Tribes had converted that assembly into little more than a mob of the city rabble, with an addition of the lowest of the country population, in which deliberation was impossible and voting a mere form, the decision being only the sanction of popular applause to the mover of a rogation, unless the tactics of the opponents prevented its passing. Nor was this all: the tribunes, not content with their sway over the Comitia of the Tribes, were in the habit of haranguing the people in the occasional assemblies called contiones,* public meetings not unknown to the constitution from the earliest times, but which henceforth became constant scenes of tumult and even of open violence.

It was the excitement of this city rabble, in the hope of obtaining the chief share in the new distribution, that gave the popular impulse to the measure of Gracchus; and yet they were politically as unfit to decide the question as they were physically incapable of supplying the required body of hardy cultivators. Whether for evil or for good, the political nullity of the popular assembly had become a recognized constitutional fact, and the Senate, in whose hands the government had now centred, could generally control the Comitia by the veto of the tribunes in their interest. When,

*The word, otherwise spelt concio, is a contraction of conventio (a meeting), and it is applied also to the harangues addressed to any public assembly. The primary object of such meetings was to prepare the people for the business to be brought before the Comitia, or to obtain their approval of some new measure, such as an intended war. They might be summoned by any magistrate, but dissolved by one of superior rank. The meetings called by Julius Proculus after the disappearance of Romulus, and by Brutus after the expulsion of the Tarquins, are cited as early examples of contiones. In the later Republic they were generally summoned by the tribunes to inflame or give utterance to popular discontent.

therefore, Gracchus, hopeless of obtaining the assent of the Senate to his measure, laid it at once before the Comitia of the Tribes, the Optimates regarded this revolutionary form of procedure as a blow to their authority quite as serious as the assault which the bill itself made upon their interests. They entered on the contest with all the vehemence of an aristocracy when they feel that not only are their interests infringed upon, but the very foundations of their power are assailed.

Since the number of the tribunes had been increased to ten, it was always possible for the Optimates to find the means of effective resistance; for, as Cicero remarks from his aristocratic point of view, we cannot imagine any set of tribunes so bad, that there should not be one man of sound understanding among the ten. The tribune M. Octavius, an intimate friend of Gracchus, but a large possessor of public land, placed his veto on the measure of his colleague. In vain did Gracchus appeal to his personal friendship, and offer to compensate his losses out of his own fortune: Octavius still forbade the clerk to read the bill to the people. Gracchus, in his turn, used his tribunitial veto to suspend all public business, and set his seal on the door of the temple of Saturn, which contained the public treasure, and the government submitted, till the year should draw to an end.* The same consideration urged Gracchus to push matters to extremity; and, after the failure of an attempt to obtain a favourable decision from the Senate, there remained but one course, to remove the obstructive tribune. It was a mere mockery to offer Octavius the alternative of a popular vote on the question, which of the two should be deposed. Octavius of course refused, and Gracchus called the tribes to vote on his deposition. The first tribe voted in the affirmative; and at this indication of the certain result, Gracchus entreated Octavius to withdraw his veto; but the tribune was resolved that his enemies should have all the responsibility. The votes of seventeen tribes were taken, all to the same effect; and the eighteenth would give a clear majority of the thirty-five tribes. Again Gracchus paused, and implored Octavius "not to oppose a measure which would be most useful to Italy, nor attempt to prevent that on which the people had set their hearts, when as a tribune it was rather his duty to assent to their wishes." The only answer was, "Complete what you have begun." The vote was finished, and Octavius

Plutarch says that he prevented the quæstors not only from drawing any money out, but from paying any in; on which Mr. Long characteristically remarks, "this part of his edict would not embarrass the quæstors so much as the other."

was dragged from the tribunes' bench by the servants of Gracchus; but the act was not completed without a tumult, in which a slave of Octavius had one of his eyes put out.* The Agrarian Law was passed without further opposition, and the three commissioners elected for its execution were Tiberius Gracchus, his father-inlaw Appius Claudius, and his brother Caius, who was then a youth of twenty, serving under Scipio against Numantia.

The deposition of Octavius was nothing short of the destruction of the most essential popular element in the Roman constitution, and it set a precedent for exposing every other part of that constitution to be overthrown by any faction that might be strong enough. It was the first example, in the whole course of Roman history, of a magistrate's being deprived, by the vote of the people, of an office committed to him for a definite term; and we have already seen the insuperable objection that was felt to deal thus even with a consul who was emperilling the Republic. The general principle is justly stated by Mr. Long:-"In a form of government where a man is elected to an office for a fixed time. by the vote of the people, it would be as great a practical absurdity that he should be deprived of his office by the vote of the people, as that when in the possession of his office he should affect to deprive the people of the power of electing his successor." If there was one Roman magistracy more than another that ought to have been secure from interference, it was that of the tribunes, the sacredness of whose persons was of less value than the inviolability of their office as the protectors, and not the servants, of the people. The vote which deposed Octavius was the virtual abrogation of the solemn compact between the orders which had been made on the Sacred Mount, and the declaration of a war in which both parties at last succumbed to despotism. "Gracchus, with the help of the popular vote, destroyed a fundamental principle of the Roman constitution and of all constituted states, and he set an example of violence which could be used against himself."† The populace of Rome and the crowds of Italians who had flocked to the capital to aid in carrying the law, attended Gracchus to his house; while the nobles, compelled to accept the measure, were resolving to avenge themselves on its author as soon as the expiration of his office reduced him to a private station.

A petty indication of their resentment was at once given. On

* This is Plutarch's statement. Appian makes Octavius retire quietly from the forum. + Long, Decline, &c., vol. i. p. 188.

the motion of P. Scipio Nasica,* the Senate assigned to the newly appointed triumvirs the pitiful allowance of twenty-four ases (little more than a shilling) a day, and refused them the accustomed tent at the public cost. Tiberius, on his part, courted the people by new proposals. Attalus of Pergamus had just died, bequeathing his kingdom and wealth to the Romans; and Gracchus not only gave notice of a law to distribute the treasure among the poor citizens, to enable them to stock their allotments of the public Land, but declared that he would refer the whole management of the newly acquired province to the assembly of the tribes. Such a violation of all constitutional usage brought the exasperation of the Senate to a climax. Q. Pompeius, probably the consul of B.C. 141, openly declared that he would impeach the tribune on the expiration of his office; and Tiberius became convinced that the only chance of safety even for his life was in his re-election for another year, a step for which there was no precedent in the annals of the Republic. The better to ensure success, he made promises of new reforms, among which are vaguely mentioned the shortening of the period of military service, the extension of the right of appeal, the abolition of the exclusive privilege of senators to form the jury (judices) in civil cases, and even the admission of the Italian allies to the Roman franchise. Meanwhile, as he sat on the tribunes' bench at the door of the Senate-house, Gracchus had to sustain daily attacks from the members, and his complaints to the people of this treatment were not always successful. On one occasion he appeared in the Forum to propose some censure on T. Annius Luscus, the consul of B.c. 153, who had attacked him in the Senate. Annius asked him, before making his charges, to answer one question:-"If you intend to deprive me of my rank and disgrace me, and I appeal to one of your brother tribunes, and he shall come to my aid, and you shall then fall into a passion, will you deprive him of his office?" Tiberius attempted no reply, but dismissed the assembly. Seeing how the shade of odium was deepening upon him, he delivered in the Senate a set defence of his conduct in the matter of Octavius. The main substance of the speech is preserved by Plutarch. The obvious argu

* P. Scipio Nasica Serapio was the son of P. Scipio Nasica Corculum, who had opposed the motions of Cato for the destruction of Carthage (See Vol. II. p. 522). He had already made himself unpopular by the severity with which he conducted the levy in his consulship (B. C. 138), when he was thrown into prison by the tribune C. Curiatius, who fixed on him the cognomen of Serapio, from his likeness to a lowborn person of that name.