Зображення сторінки
PDF
ePub

the invectives launched upon him, with savage aim. He then endeavoured to bring one of his antagonists to trial; but it was unnatural to his disposition to be an accuser or a personal enemy of any man; and his charges were easily parried.36 On the other hand, though assailed with all the evil spirit that he had roused against himself, he did not seem to be defended by any attachment or magnanimity such as he might be supposed to have inspired; for it is continually to be borne in mind that the errors which now plainly mark his course were viewed by his contemporaries, unless his political opponents be excepted, in the light of ordinary, if not of virtuous, actions. The deposition of Octavius, however, was brought up against Tiberius by the common people, as well as by the party of the abused Tribune; and a certain Senator went so far as to accuse Gracchus of aspiring to make himself a king:33 yet neither the absurdity of the latter charge, nor the vehemence of the former, impelled a single man to stand between Tiberius and the blows sure, as soon as the first was dealt, to rain upon him heavily. His spirits fell; and when one of his chosen friends died, as was believed, from poison," while his own life was exposed to constant danger, the Tribune put on mourning robes, and went among the people with his children, entreating that they and their mother might be defended, though he him

37

36 With subtlety of question and answer." Plut., loc. cit. Liv., LVIII.

Epit.,

37 Plut., Tib. Gr., 15.

38 Ibid., 14.

39 Ibid., 13.

self were overwhelmed.40 It did not then appear that he had simply failed, but that he was utterly and for ever ruined.

41

A new spring-time, however, seemed to return to Tiberius with the arrival of his brother Caius from the siege of Numantia, whence he must have been summoned immediately on his appointment as one of the three commissioners. Caius Gracchus, nine years the younger of the brothers, and therefore, at this time, not more than twenty or twenty-one himself, possessed the sensibility of Tiberius, in union with much greater clearness and much greater strength of mind. Had he been at his brother's side, as he undoubtedly would have been, with the blessing of Heaven upon them and upon their country, either the laws would have received no outrage in the person of Octavius, or else, the outrage having been perpetrated, its authors might have borne its consequences with firmer spirits, and perhaps have altogether averted them. But when Caius actually came, the condition in which his brother stood admitted of no such remedies as were suggested by his impatient nature; and it was equally vain to urge Tiberius to violence after his sufferings for the single act of the kind he had committed, or to triumph in the sight of men who had beheld him weeping and entreating compassion in the very thoroughfares of Rome. Caius was not the less

40 Plut., Tib. Gr., 13.

41 Which may be set down at the present time, according to the

hints we find in Plut., Tib. Gr., 20, and Dion Cass., Fragm. LXXXVIII.

joyfully welcomed, and at his persuasions, as at his mother's exhortations,42 Tiberius shook off the chill that had seized him, and gave himself once more to warmer hopes.

Yet, while we recount the difficulties which Tiberius Gracchus had not been able to overcome by his own unaided strength, he deserves much higher praise than he has hitherto received. In an age when most men liked to loll upon the bank, and ventured to cross the rolling stream only as if on bridges made of arms or strewed with gold, Tiberius dared to breast the waves, bearing the burden of a helpless people, and thinking of safety for their sakes as well, it may at least be said, as for his own. And when his first essay had blanched his cheek and shaken his frame, he waited only until help arrived to try another, bolder even than the one he made with too little aid, though starting, as we have read, amidst many glad vociferations and some kind sympathies. Trusting now in the spirits of his brother and the counsels of their common friends,3 Tiberius came forward as a candidate for reëlection, with promises of various benefits he would bestow upon his fellow-citizens, if they confided in him with the same sincerity that made him wish their welfare. Numerous as were his projects, and closely as they were undoubtedly connected with general desire and public justice,44

42 If Juvenal's touches be correct, she must have felt Tiberius's weakness.

"Si cum magnis virtutibus affers Grande supercilium, et numeras in dote triumphos."-Sat., VI. 168, 169.

43 Plut., Tib. Gr., 16.

44 There should be, he is reputed to have said, an appeal to the assemblies in civil as well as crimi nal cases; the judicial tribunals

VOL. II.

30

they excited but little interest in the main body of the people, disheartened, if not offended, by the course of the Agrarian law, from which they had hoped so much and gained so little, on account, as they would add, of its commissioners. There is no proof that Tiberius relaxed his exertions at this time, because they were met by, almost universal apathy; but rather that he was convinced of the necessity of his being reëlected, not only in order to succeed, but to save himself alive from those who would break forth upon him the instant they perceived him to be undefended.

The few really benefited by the Agrarian law, and therefore at all attached to Gracchus as their benefactor, were too contented or too busied in their new homes to come to Rome beneath a summer sun to vote for him and his candidates against the party of the rich and their adherents amongst the populace. Tiberius had already presented the name of his brother Caius for a place in the tribuneship, and both the brothers may have come forward together on the election; but the tumult excited by their appearance would have been beyond their control, had they been

should be reorganized; the power of the Senate should be restrained; some place should be provided for the Italians as citizens of Rome; and while these things were to be done at home, the period of foreign service should be curtailed. Plut., Tib. Gr., 16. App., Bell. Civ., I. 14. Vell. Pat., II. 2. Val. Max., III. 2. 17. Dion Cass., Fragm.

45

LXXXVIII. But it is often doubted, and I think for good reasons, whether these were not attributed to Tiberius by confounding his brother's doings with his own. Or if they were really his proposals, they must have been made, as I conjecture, at Caius's suggestion.

45 Dion Cass., Fragm. LXXXVIII.

twenty instead of two, or rather one; for Caius, if he went into the Forum with the other candidates, seems to have suddenly disappeared. The day wore away in clamor; and the presiding Tribune, unable to maintain order, or even to report the votes on account of the increasing confusion, declared the election deferred to the morrow. Tiberius descended amongst the crowd, beseeching all who loved him to defend him through the night, lest he should be murdered before he could meet them again in the morning. The bolt that before had grazed now pierced his soul.

46

A large number of citizens followed him home and watched about his house until the morning came, dark with omens to him, and tempestuous with the throngs that gathered throughout the city as though it were a camp in arms. No mention of Caius is to be found; and it was by the remonstrances of one of his early friends, the Campanian Blossius, that Tiberius was persuaded to go forth at the head of his followers 48 to the Capitol, where he was so joyfully received by those still true to him as to be for a few moments reassured. But the Tribes no sooner began to vote than the riot of the preceding day was renewed; in the midst of which Tiberius was informed by Fulvius Flaccus, a Senator, and one of his warm adherents, that the Senate was deliberating upon his instant overthrow. It was true. The debate had begun in an orderly way upon the conduct of the

46 Plut., Tib. Gr., 17.

47 Dion Cass., Fragm. LXXXVII.

48Cum catervis suis." Vell. Pat., II. 3. Cf. Aul. Gell., II. 13.

« НазадПродовжити »