The Two Great Republics: Rome and the United States Part 7

"These acts of Tiberius Gracchus are commonly said to have been the beginning of revolution at Rome; and the guilt of it is accordingly laid at his door. And there can be no doubt that he was guilty in the sense that a man is guilty who introduces a light into some chamber filled with explosive vapour, which the stupidity or malice of others has suffered to acc.u.mulate. But, after all, too much is made of this violation of const.i.tutional forms and the sanct.i.ty of the tribunate. The first were effete, and all regular means of renovating the republic seemed to be closed to the despairing patriot, by stolid obstinacy sheltering itself under the garb of law and order. The second was no longer what it had been--the recognised refuge and defence of the poor. The rich, as Tiberius in effect argued, had found out how to use it also. If all men who set the example of forcible infringement of law are criminals, Gracchus was a criminal. But in the world's annals he sins in good company; and when men condemn him, they should condemn Was.h.i.+ngton also. Perhaps his failure has had most to do with his condemnation. But if ever a revolution was excusable this was; for it was carried not by a small party for small aims, but by national acclamations, by the voices of Italians who flocked to Rome to vote. How far Gracchus saw the inevitable effects of his acts is open to dispute. But probably he saw it as clearly as any man can see the future.

Because he was generous and enthusiastic, it is a.s.sumed that he was sentimental and weak, and that his policy was guided by impulse rather than reason. There seems little to sustain such a judgment other than the desire of writers to emphasise a comparison between him and his brother." (A. H.

Beesly, in _The Gracchi, Marius and Sulla_.)

The procedure adopted by Gracchus on this occasion was unknown to the law, but it is hard to say that it was against the law. If this action was unconst.i.tutional, and revolutionary, so had been every change which had ever been made in the fundamental principles of Roman public law. The truth of the matter was that Rome had neither a written const.i.tution nor any law governing the method by which its fundamental law might be changed. Rome, in this respect, was constantly in a position similar to that in which the state of Rhode Island found herself in 1841. The old colonial charter, which after the separation from England had been continued in force as a state const.i.tution, was no longer suitable for existing conditions, and there was a general feeling among the inhabitants of the state that the old charter must give way to a new state const.i.tution. A difficulty, however, here presented itself in the fact that the old colonial charter, having been granted by royal authority, contained no provision as to its amendment by act of the people. In this situation the people of the state were compelled to go outside of their organic law, and, disregarding the old charter, to adopt a new const.i.tution and form of government. All this was not accomplished, however, without much confusion and an incipient civil war.

Similarly situated, Tiberius Gracchus was now obliged to go beyond the letter of the existing law, and to vindicate the underlying principle of Roman law that the duty of the tribune was the protection of the rights of the people, by introducing a new political expedient into the scheme of Roman government.

Upon the deposition of Octavius the agrarian law of Gracchus was immediately pa.s.sed by acclamation. Three commissioners were appointed to carry out the provisions of the bill--Tiberius Gracchus, his brother Gaius, and Appius Claudius, the father-in-law of Tiberius Gracchus.

For a time the success and popularity of Gracchus was at its zenith; the commissioners, appointed to allot the land, energetically prosecuted the work, and the great landowners became more and more bitter as they saw their illegal gains about to be wrested from them.

One difficulty in the carrying out of the agrarian law was due to the fact that the poverty of the ma.s.s of the Roman citizens was such that very few who desired to secure an allotment of land were possessed of, or could secure, the necessary money to stock the new farms and to erect the necessary buildings. When, therefore, at this crisis, it was learned that Attalus Philometor, the recently deceased king of Pergamus, in Asia Minor, had made the Roman people his heirs, bequeathing to them both his kingdom and all his private lands and treasures, Gracchus grasped at this opportunity to overcome the difficulty experienced by the agrarian commission. He proposed a law providing that all the money so received should be used to furnish the necessary stock for those to whom the public land was a.s.signed.

About the same time another law was enacted, apparently not proposed by Tiberius Gracchus, providing that the Agrarian Commission (called the triumviri) should have final jurisdiction in all controversies over the question as to whether any particular piece of land was public or private land. The capitalistic party, setting an example which has been so often followed in our own country and in our own day, now attempted to divert the issue from the reforms being put into operation through the energy of Gracchus, by personal attacks upon the tribune himself; he was accused of having received a purple robe and diadem from the envoy of the late king of Pergamus; of having violated the Roman const.i.tution; of desiring to make himself king over Rome.

Only vindictive partisans.h.i.+p could find any basis upon which to allege the truth of any of these charges except perhaps that of a technical violation of the Roman const.i.tution in the deposition of Octavius. The extreme party in the Senate, led by Publius Scipio Nasica, were openly plotting the death of Tiberius Gracchus, either by a.s.sa.s.sination or by judicial proceedings, as soon as his term of office should expire.

The violent position taken by his opponents clearly showed to Tiberius Gracchus that both his reforms and his life were in danger. It was evident that neither the agrarian reforms nor the life of Gracchus would be safe after he had ceased to hold the office of tribune, and the course of events finally drove Tiberius into becoming a candidate for reelection. To strengthen his hold upon the people he prepared three new laws. The first law diminished the required period of military service; the second law changed the procedure in the higher courts of law, and permitted the jurors to be selected from all persons possessing a certain amount of property, instead of (as previously) restricting the selection to members of the Senate; the third law created the right of appeal from the courts of law to the a.s.sembly of the people in all cases.

The scenes at the election in June, 133 B.C., when Tiberius Gracchus for the second time came before the comitia tributa as a candidate for election as tribune, were among the most tumultuous in all Roman political history. Upon the first day of voting the first tribe gave its vote for the reelection of Tiberius Gracchus; upon this, his opponents immediately raised a protest, declaring that no one could be twice, in succession, elected to the office of tribune. The debate on this question developed into such a tumult that any further business became an impossibility, and the meeting was adjourned until the next day.

The friends of Tiberius were now thoroughly alarmed for his safety. A large throng accompanied him to his home, and kept watch before his doors all night. Before going to the comitia tributa in the morning Tiberius is reported to have told his friends that if he considered himself in danger, during the day's proceedings, and thought it necessary for his friends to repel force by force, he would raise his hand to his head. No means seems to have been adopted, however, for any concerted or effectual resistance, and none of his friends who attended the meeting of the comitia tributa went armed.

On the morning of the second meeting of the comitia tributa the Senate also met close by in the temple of Faith. Nasica demanded of the consul Scaevola, who presided, to take steps to prevent the reelection of Tiberius Gracchus. The consul refused to interfere. At this stage one of the senators, Fulvius Flaccus, who was friendly to Tiberius, hastened from the temple to inform him that his death was about to be resolved upon by the Senate. Upon hearing this news the friends of Gracchus began hastily to arm themselves with staves, for the protection of their leader, and Gracchus gave the agreed signal by raising his hand to his head.

Seizing every opportunity to attack the motives of Gracchus, his opponents raised the cry that he was asking for a crown, and this report was carried into the Senate. Nasica, the bitterest of the enemies of Gracchus and of his reforms, shouted, "The consul is betraying the republic! Those who would save their country, follow me!" and rushed out from the meeting of the Senate. He was followed by many of the senators, and by their slaves and adherents, those who were not already armed breaking up the benches to make clubs for themselves. The followers of Gracchus, without any organization among themselves, were unable to offer effectual resistance to the attack, and soon fled in all directions. Tiberius Gracchus attempted to take refuge in the temple of Jupiter, but the priests closed the doors against him, and, stumbling over a bench, he was killed by repeated blows on the head before he could rise. In this riot more than three hundred of the followers of Gracchus were killed by clubs, or by being driven over the wall at the edge of the Tarpeian rock. The hatred toward Tiberius Gracchus, on the part of the special interests of the time, did not end with his murder. Gaius Gracchus was refused permission, which he sought, to bury his brother, and it was decreed by the Senate that the bodies of Tiberius Gracchus and his followers should be thrown into the Tiber before daybreak on the following morning.

Very divergent views have been taken of the conduct of Tiberius Gracchus and that of his opponents by different cla.s.ses of historians.

Historians, equally with politicians, inevitably fall into one of the two cla.s.ses into which mankind is divided, the cla.s.s of the radicals on the one hand, or of the conservatives on the other; into the cla.s.s of those who favor progress and the recognition of the supreme right of manhood, or into the cla.s.s of those who wish to keep things as they are, and wors.h.i.+p before the shrine of vested interests. No single incident in history better serves to bring out the bias of the historian than does that of the efforts of Tiberius Gracchus in behalf of his agrarian law. No historian can write this page of Roman history without throwing open for the inspection of the world the inmost workings of his mind and sympathies. That cla.s.s of historians who can see more pathos in the execution of King Louis XVI than in the combined misery of the downtrodden millions who lived and died in France under the two centuries of Bourbon misrule, have attempted to cast upon Tiberius Gracchus the stigma of a demagogue, of a reckless leader, of a violator of his country's most fundamental laws; while the conduct of the leaders of the conservative party, who did not hesitate at the crisis to resort even to murder rather than surrender their unlawful profits, is excused as being rendered necessary by the violence of Tiberius Gracchus.

Yet there are few prominent characters in whose public actions the impartial critic can find so little to criticize as in that of the greatest of all Roman tribunes--Tiberius Gracchus. At the outset the whole policy of Gracchus was moderate and even conciliatory, and it was only the unyielding selfishness of the great landowners which forced him into a position where he must either surrender all for which he was fighting or adopt a more vigorous plan of campaign; which, finally, against his will, compelled him to adopt those tactics for which he has been so severely censured by certain historians.

The legality of the deposition of Octavius has already been discussed.

It only remains to consider the action of Tiberius Gracchus in presenting himself as a candidate for reelection as tribune. Of the vital necessity for this action, both to secure the enforcement of the agrarian law and the personal safety of Tiberius himself, there can be no doubt. It must be admitted, however, that this by itself is not a sufficient defense of the action of Gracchus on this occasion. The fundamental principles of government in any country cannot, generally, be safely violated merely to meet a temporary exigency. The worst possible government is generally better, for those who are to live under it, than anarchy; and the condition of a country where laws can be habitually broken with impunity is but one step from that of a country where no laws exist. The breaking of a law with good motives is often more disastrous than the breaking of it with bad intentions; because in a former case an example is set which, being looked upon with approval by a large cla.s.s of the best people in the community, is apt to furnish a precedent for future violations of the law, with the worst motives and for the most dangerous purposes. No true republic can long continue to exist unless a sense of reverence for and obedience to law is bred into the ma.s.s of its citizens. The right of overthrowing a corrupt government and of establis.h.i.+ng a new civic system must ever reside with the people; but such a right must be resorted to only as an extreme, exceptional, and desperate remedy, and the frequent recurrence of revolutions and rebellions in a republic results in a subst.i.tution of the rule of force for the peaceful rule of the majority, and is inconsistent with any true idea of democracy.

If, then, Tiberius Gracchus had attempted to override the fundamental law of Rome for the purpose of obtaining some temporary personal or partisan advantage he might well have deserved the attacks which have been made upon his memory. Tiberius Gracchus, however, violated no provision of the Roman const.i.tution. No evidence exists that there was ever any law making a Roman tribune ineligible for reelection.

The prohibition would seem to have arisen from long-continued custom rather than from law, and to have been of a character not unsimilar to the so-called "conventions of the English Const.i.tution," or to the rule in this country that no man shall be elected for a third term as President. If a law declaring a tribune to be ineligible for reelection was ever enacted in Rome (and with the absence of a full list of Roman laws this is a point on which absolute certainty is impossible) it was, in all probability, of a directory rather than a mandatory character. Such was the character of all Roman laws relative to the qualification of officers. Thus, the Roman laws provided a regular order in which the princ.i.p.al offices at Rome should be held, and prohibited any person holding any office until he had held all those named before it on the list, and until he had reached a certain specified age.

This law, while in the main followed, was frequently disregarded. The violations were in the main chargeable to the very cla.s.s at Rome that was most bitter in the denunciation of Tiberius Gracchus for offering himself as a candidate for reelection as tribune. Under the existing political conditions at Rome no great blame could be attached to an occasional disregard either of the law regulating the qualifications for office or the law, or custom, relative to the reelection of a tribune. It is only on this one occasion in Roman history that the violation of either of these laws was denounced as an attack on the Roman const.i.tution. Even in the exciting days preceding the pa.s.sage of the Licinian Laws the tribunes Licinius and s.e.xtius were reelected year after year, without the legality of their election being questioned. Only ten years after the death of Tiberius Gracchus the reelection to the office of tribune of his brother, Gaius Gracchus, was permitted. It is a striking comment upon the fairness of some of the historians who attack Tiberius Gracchus for his alleged violation of the law that they are able to find excuses for the action of that branch of the senatorial party whose members were so unwilling to surrender to the state their illegal profits that they resorted to force to break up a meeting of the comitia tributa and to murder Gracchus and three hundred of his adherents.

The years which intervened between the tribunes.h.i.+p of Tiberius Gracchus and that of his brother Gaius were filled with internal factional discord at Rome, but without any decisive results. Each party, in turn, was able to secure revenge upon its opponents, in the conflict connected with the death of Tiberius Gracchus. First, the popular party was successful in compelling Nasica to retire from Italy. Next, in 132 B.C., the Senate gave to the consuls a commission to inquire into the actions of those who had supported Tiberius Gracchus. By means of this commission the aristocratic party was enabled to bring about the execution of some of the partisans of Gracchus and the exile of others.

For the time the leaders.h.i.+p of the popular party had pa.s.sed to C.

Papirius Carbo, a man possessed both of the ability and the vices of the successful demagogue. He was one of those politicians who are always to be found in the forefront of every movement for liberty or reform, and who, by their hypocrisy and selfishness, do more to bring discredit upon the principles they champion than can possibly be done by the ablest of the opponents of such principles. No greater contrast can be imagined than is to be found in a comparison between Tiberius Gracchus and Carbo. In the case of the former we see a devotion to principle and to humanity which not even the fear of death could alter; in the case of Carbo, on the contrary, we can discover nothing but a striving for selfish ends and personal advancement. He appeared as a radical among radicals when this att.i.tude seemed to offer the shortest road to fame and fortune; and with equal facility he became the most abject tool of the senatorial party when such a change of position seemed most likely to result to his personal benefit.

Being elected a tribune, Carbo set himself to win the favor of the people by new popular legislation. He introduced and secured the pa.s.sage of a bill extending the use of the ballot into the legislative a.s.semblies of the people. His next measure, one to formally authorize the reelection of tribunes, was defeated. Gaius Gracchus made his first public speech in support of this measure.

The work of the Agrarian Commission, in the meantime, had been progressing in spite of the murder of Tiberius Gracchus and the obstacles which the great landowners were constantly throwing in the way of the commission. The Roman census shows that in the six years from 131 to 125 B.C. the number of burgesses was increased by seventy-six thousand; this increase was almost entirely due to the operation of the agrarian law, and the work of the commission.

The vacancy in the Agrarian Commission made by the murder of Tiberius Gracchus had been first filled by the election of P. Licinius Cra.s.sus, father-in-law of Gaius Gracchus. Upon the death of Cra.s.sus, and of Appius Claudius a few years later, these commissioners were succeeded by Carbo and Fulvius Flaccus, the latter being the senator who had attempted to warn Tiberius Gracchus of his danger, on the day of his death.

Carbo, for the time the guiding spirit of the commission, attempted to win additional popularity by a vigorous policy in carrying out the agrarian law. Energetic action along this line was undoubtedly needed, as the great landowners had in many ways succeeded in blocking the work of the commission. The policy of Carbo, however, was that of the demagogue rather than that of the statesman, and the result of the methods which he adopted was a reaction which, for a time, completely put a stop to the work of the commission, split the popular party, and created a new political party or faction whose existence had an important influence upon the course of Roman political history during the next two generations.

The first step taken by Carbo was the publication of a proclamation calling for information against owners of public land who had not voluntarily registered themselves as such. In theory such a proceeding was undoubtedly a proper mode of procedure against the large holders of public lands who were endeavoring to evade the agrarian law; but in practice it resulted in a great deal of hards.h.i.+p. Many of the good land t.i.tles throughout all Italy were without sufficient doc.u.mentary proof; and many landowners, whose land was private, were yet at a loss for evidence to prove that their land was of this character when information against them was filed with the commission.

The situation was a most delicate one, and one requiring the exercise of the highest degree of honesty, tact, good judgment, and diligence.

None of these qualities was possessed by Carbo. The commission acted in the most arbitrary manner and apparently declared a great deal of private land to belong to the public. The injustice seems to have been practiced not so much against the great landowners (Carbo appears even as early as this to have been falling under the influence of the aristocratic party) as against the small Latin and Italian landowners.

The result was that the Latins and Italians, who had been among the truest of the adherents of Tiberius Gracchus, now became alienated from the Roman popular party under the leaders.h.i.+p of Carbo, and began to come under the influence of the senatorial party.

Politics made strange bedfellows two thousand years ago as well as now, and the new turn of the wheel of Roman politics brought in Scipio Africa.n.u.s as the head of the Latins and Italians, and working in harmony with the Senate.

The first action taken by Scipio was to introduce and secure the pa.s.sage of a law taking away from the Agrarian Commission the judicial power by which it was enabled to decide questions as to the public or private character of lands and vesting such power in the consuls. This judicial power was then vested in the consul C. Semp.r.o.nius Tudita.n.u.s; but he being soon sent to Illyria to conduct a military campaign against the Iapydes, no person was left in Rome with the power to settle questions of this character. The work of the Agrarian Commission was now brought to a stop, and no further rea.s.sumption or allotting of public lands could take place. Thus the great landowners were finally successful in destroying the effect of the agrarian legislation of Tiberius Gracchus.

As this result began to make itself manifest, so great criticism arose against the action of Scipio that he felt called upon to announce that he would explain and defend his actions both before the Senate and before the people. In his speech before the Senate he carefully evaded all reference to the case of the great landowners who still continued illegally to hold large tracts of the public lands, and proclaimed his purpose to be to protect the Latin and Italian farmers whose small holdings of land were being wrongfully taken from them by the actions of the Agrarian Commission. These small farmers, sympathy for whom Scipio thus attempted to arouse, thus occupied the position held by those widows and orphans who to-day appear so prominently among the stockholders of all law-breaking corporations.

The speech of Scipio was naturally well received in the Senate; what its reception would have been on the second day, before the people in the Forum, is problematical. On the morning following his speech in the Senate Scipio was found dead in his bed. It is one of the unsolved mysteries of history whether Scipio died from natural causes or was murdered. Nor is it more certain, if he was murdered, as to who his murderers were. Strong suspicion was directed against Carbo, and that hypocritical demagogue was driven into a temporary political retirement, from which he emerged a few years later as one of the most serviceable tools of the senatorial party.

The importance, ability, and character of Scipio Africa.n.u.s have been greatly over-praised by most historians. A. H. Beesly, however, in his work _The Gracchi, Marius and Sulla_, gives a discriminating criticism of this Roman general and statesman:

"He is usually extolled as a patriot who would not stir to humour a Roman rabble, but who, when downtrodden honest farmers, his comrades in the wars, appealed to him, at once stepped into the arena as their champion. In reality he was a reactionist who, when the inevitable results of those liberal ideas which had been broached in his own circle stared him in the face, seized the first available means of stifling them. The world had moved too fast for him. As censor, instead of beseeching the G.o.ds to increase the glory of the State, he begged them to preserve it. Brave as a man, he was a pusillanimous statesman. It was well for his reputation that he died just then. Without Sulla's personal vices he might have played Sulla's part as a politician, and his atrocities in Spain as well as his remark on the death of Tiberius Gracchus--words breathing the very essence of a narrow swordsman's nature--showed that from bloodshed at all events he would not have shrunk. It is hard to respect such a man in spite of all his good qualities. Fortune gave him the opportunity of playing a great part, and he shrank from it. When the crop sprang up which he had himself helped to sow, he blighted it. But because he was personally respectable, and because he held a middle course between contemporary parties, he has found favour with historians, who are too apt to forget that there is in politics, as in other things, a right course and a wrong, and that to attempt to walk along both at once proves a man to be a weak statesman, and does not prove him to be a great or good man."

The fillers in, who had occupied the stage of Roman politics for the years following the murder of Tiberius Gracchus, were now removed, and the stage was being rapidly set for the second and final act of the great historical tragedy of the Gracchi.

The political problems which confronted Rome at the time of the death of Scipio rapidly reached such an acute state that it became evident the solution of these problems, and the preservation of the Roman republic, must be the work of a Man, not of a manikin or a demagogue.

At this crisis Rome was blessed with the best of fortune, only to be immediately thereafter cursed with the worst of misfortune. The good fortune consisted in the fact that at this time the man presented himself for the work; the bad fortune arose from the refusal of Rome to avail herself of his work.

The agitation of Carbo had added to the bitter contest between rich and poor, and one perhaps still more bitter, at least temporarily, between Romans and Italians. An attempt was made to reconcile the differences between the Romans and Italians by means of a compromise, by the terms of which the Italians were to consent to the carrying out of the Agrarian Law, and in return were to be admitted to Roman citizens.h.i.+p. This last proposal was viewed with great alarm by the Roman proletariat, most of whom were by this time possessed of nothing in the world except the rights and privileges of Roman citizens.h.i.+p, and who saw that the value of such rights and privileges would be greatly diminished by the great increase now proposed in the number of those by whom such rights and privileges were to be enjoyed.

The Italians, on their side, delighted at the prospect of obtaining these rights, began to come to Rome in great numbers. This migration added fuel to the flame, and in 126 B.C. the tribune, Junius Pennus, proposed an alien act by which foreigners were compelled to leave Rome. The law was pa.s.sed, with unpleasant consequences at a later date. For the second time in his life Gaius Gracchus made a public speech, on this occasion appearing on the losing side.

The following year Gaius Gracchus served as quaestor and was sent to Sardinia under the consul Aurelius Orestes. The Senate, and the oligarchical party in general, had by this time come to regard the young Gaius Gracchus with mingled fear and suspicion, and in disregard of the laws he was first ordered to remain a second year in Sardinia, and later to remain a third year.

In the meantime, at Rome, events had been moving rapidly. Fulvius Flaccus, the old friend of Tiberius Gracchus, had been elected consul and had brought in a bill extending the franchise to all the Latin and Italian allies. Shortly thereafter, before the bill had been voted upon, Flaccus had been sent by the Senate upon foreign service, and the bill was sidetracked. The disappointment at such a result on the part of those who were denied the right of suffrage, after they had believed it won, culminated in the rebellion of the Latin city of Fregellae. The force with which the city was reduced to submission, and the severity with which the outbreak was punished, destroyed any further thought on the part of the Latins and Italians of attempting to secure their rights by force, but increased the silent discontent of these people.

It was with these conditions existing at Rome that Gaius Gracchus returned to the city after two and one-half years' absence in Sardinia, defying the Senate by disobeying its order to finish out his third year in the island.

The censors were in office at the time of the return of Gaius Gracchus to Rome, and his enemies succeeded in having him summoned before them immediately to answer for his alleged misconduct in leaving the post to which he had been a.s.signed by the Senate. It was hoped that the censors could be induced to denounce him, which action would have rendered him ineligible to hold public office. Gracchus, however, so strongly defended himself in a speech to the people that the censors did not dare take any action against him. In his speech he relied on the well-established principle of the Roman law at that time, that the Senate had no authority to compel him to serve as quaestor for a longer period than one year. As to his own conduct in the exercise of the office of quaestor he said, "No one can say that I have received a penny in presents, or have put any one to charges on my own account.

The purse which I took out full I have brought back empty; though I could name persons who took out casks filled with wine and brought them home charged with money."

Upon his acquittal Gaius Gracchus became a candidate for the office of tribune, and was elected, in spite of the most strenuous opposition of the senatorial party and of the great landowners. However, the opposition to him was so strong that, in the number of votes received, he stood only fourth in the list of successful candidates.

Before entering upon the work of Gaius Gracchus as Roman tribune it is admissible to stop for a moment to compare the characters, natures, and abilities of Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus. The general judgment of history seems to a.s.sign a far higher place to Gaius Gracchus than to his elder brother. How far such a view is correct is certainly questionable. It is a view based largely upon the longer term of office, the more spectacular reforms, and the more dramatic death of the younger brother. Without detracting in any degree from the high character and motives, and the wonderful ability, of Gaius Gracchus, it may still be said that the higher niche in the temple of history more properly belongs to Tiberius.

To Tiberius belongs that special honor which properly attaches itself to the pioneer; perhaps, most of all, to the pioneer in the field of political, social, or economic reforms. In the case of Tiberius, his career was deliberately entered upon, as the result of his profound study and keen observation, acting upon his naturally strong Roman patriotism, hatred of wrong and oppression, and sympathy for humanity.

Whether the career of Gaius would have taken the direction which it did but for the memory and influence of his brother, is problematical.

It is certain that the strongest motive which urged him onward in his career as tribune was the all-mastering desire and determination to avenge the murder of his brother, and to vindicate his memory by carrying his measures through to a triumphant conclusion. It might almost be said that the mainspring of the career of Tiberius was his love for Rome, while the mainspring of the career of Gaius was his love for his brother.

Tiberius Gracchus was the greater statesman; Gaius Gracchus the better politician. Tiberius could see more clearly the great outlines of what lay at a distance; Gaius could discern more exactly the details of what was close at hand. If the political activities of the two brothers could have been at the same time, each would have supplemented the other, and it is possible that their combined efforts might have been sufficient to secure the accomplishment of their purposes.