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notwithstanding, passed; and the city was cleared of strangers as though they had been its enemies.

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Caius Gracchus was evidently weary of inaction and unavailing sorrow. The love he bore his murdered brother would have been a sufficient motive in itself to impel him towards aims that were worthy of the name he bore and the memories he appeared to personify in the eyes of all who had loved or hated the departed. As if avoiding, however, the Forum, to him still haunted by the spirit of Tiberius and his fallen friends, Caius sought a place in the quæstorship, which he obtained in an army about to enter upon service in Sardinia, where, as very frequently happened, there was a rebellion to be suppressed. While he was engaged in his canvass according to the common routine, but more than usually fatigued and excited by his return to the public life from which, with few exceptions, he had stood aloof for seven years, he seemed one night to see his brother in his dreams, and to hear Tiberius's wellremembered voice upbraid him for his doubts and delays. "Why linger, Caius," it breathed, "when the same death by which I perished is before thee likewise?"79 The hesitation and the sorrow of the sleeper were dispelled; and he woke, not, indeed, to joyful hope of future triumph, but to the far more marvellous resolution of employing aright and fervently the life that yet remained before the coming of its mournful end.

78 The authority of Cicero (De 79 Cic., De Div., I. 26. Div., I. 26) is here more reliable

than that of Plutarch (C. Gr., 1).

We may follow him to Sardinia, whither he proceeded as Quæstor to a consular army, if it be only to remark that the same confidence which was felt in Tiberius by the Numantines was given to Caius by the rugged Sardinians. Such, indeed, was the good report of the Quæstor among strangers, that there came an embassy to Rome from the king of Numidia, announcing the despatch of grain to the forces in Sardinia, on account of the regard which he entertained for Caius Gracchus. Instead, however, of there being any respect for him or for the embassy amongst the Senate, the Numidian envoys were denied an audience, while orders were sent to the Consul in Sardinia to continue in command, so that his Quæstor might be kept away from Rome.80 During his two years of absence, Caius Gracchus had recovered all his youthful energies, strengthening them by the manlier resolution which became his maturer age, and consecrating them with affectionate vows to the cause for which his brother had perished and he had nine years silently suffered. The covert fears of the Senate aroused his dormant passions, and, instead of remaining with the army, he instantly returned to Rome. Called to account before the people, by the Censors, for his desertion, he answered boldly, “I remained at my post as long my post as long as I thought it of any use to you, not as long as I considered it of advantage to my own ambition. . . . . . My purse," he continued, "which I bore away filled, I have brought

80 Plut., C. Gr., 2.

back empty; there were others who took away winejars, and have brought them home filled with silver." SI It was plain, nevertheless, however other officers returned, that Caius Gracchus came, pure of avarice and of treachery, indeed, but with tumult in his train.

This abrupt return was preceded by an eventful year, in which Fulvius Flaccus, often mentioned in connection with the Gracchi, had made a show of employing the consulship, on which he entered, to the advantage of the popular cause. It was about a twelvemonth since the law of Pennus prevailed against the aliens; and Flaccus, conceiving the strength which their support would give to his party, proposed that the rights of citizenship and appeal should be bestowed on those Italians who desired to remove to Rome.8 The same prospect that animated Flaccus to urge determined his adversaries to resist the law; and though the Consul made light of the expostulations addressed to him in the Senate, he was easily removed by being appointed to the command of an expedition against some Gauls beyond the Alps, in pursuit of whom he forgot his law and all he left behind. But the measures he did not stay to complete had kindled the old heart-burnings of the Italians; and though the revolt of Fregellæ, a

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83

81 The defence was fuller; but see Aul. Gell., XV. 12; Plut., C. Gr., 2. Caius returned A. C. 124. 82 A. C. 125.

84 Who had attacked the allied city of Marseilles. Liv., Epit. LX. They were subdued, and their territories formed into the province of

83 Val. Max., IX. 5. 1. App., Gallia Ulterior, A. C. 121. Bell. Civ., I. 21.

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colony established after the great Latin war, and subsequently increased by a large number of Pelignians and Samnites, was promptly and fearfully punished, there were many taught by the insurrection, not to rebel, but to watch with keener eyes their opportunity of obtaining justice from the Romans. A part of the accusation preferred against Caius Gracchus, on his return, set forth that he had countenanced the rebellion of Fregellæ; but the charge, however grounded, could result only in attracting the confidence of the Italians and in stimulating his own resolves.

He sought the tribuneship at once, and, notwithstanding the headstrong opposition of the Senate and its party, was returned, but fourth on the list, instead of first, as might have been anticipated. In the following winter,87 when his term began, he soon obtained the place he merited, of chief amongst his colleagues, and entered upon the career of which, since the vision related, he had constantly foreseen the close. The example of Tiberius alone would not have been sufficient, apart from his own impulses, to direct Caius upon the course he followed; for, though the goal might be the same to both the brothers, the starting-point of the elder had been wreathed with hopes, while that of the younger, who began in defiance of his threatening enemies rather

85 Liv., VIII. 22, XLI. 8. The name of Italians must be understood as including such colonies, as well as the municipalities and all the allied states together.

86 Liv., Epit. LX.

87 That of A. C. 124-123. Caius was of the same age as Tiberius, at entering on the tribunate.

than with the cheering acclamations of his friends, was craped with forebodings he could not tear away.

The first proceedings of the new Tribune were directed against his brother's foes. A bill he preferred concerning the ineligibility to office of such as were at any time deposed from a magistracy was clearly aimed at Octavius Cæcina, whose conduct in the tribuneship would be regarded by Caius Gracchus as having been the primary cause of his brother's ruin. Another bill, closely following the first, and ordering the prosecution of any magistrates who had banished a citizen without form of trial, was as clearly levelled against Popillius Lænas, whose animosity, as Consul, towards the friends Tiberius left behind him was fresh in the memory of those who had escaped his sentences of confiscation and banishment.88 Popillius, without waiting the result of the measure by which he was threatened, went into exile; but Octavius, who would scarcely have fled, had he been actually endangered, was spared the penalty proposed, perhaps on account of his connection with the Gracchi, by the withdrawal of the bill.89 "These men,"

cried Caius Gracchus, "are the murderers of Tibe

88 He was Consul in the year following Tiberius's death. Vell. Pat., II. 7. Plut., Tib. Gr., 20.

These bills are mentioned in Plut., C. Gr., 4. A fragment of Caius's speech against Pop. Lænas is in Aul. Gell., XI. 13.

89 His connection, already referred to, is mentioned in Dion VOL. II.

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Cass., Fragm. LXXXVII. There is a letter purporting to be written by Cornelia, which agrees with the part she is known to have taken in pleading for Octavius. Diod. Sic., Reliq., XXXIV. - XXXV. 25. It begins," Dicis pulchrum esse inimicos ulcisci," etc., and is found in most editions of Corn. Nepos.

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