large increase on the numbers of the previous census (Chap. xv.), if we can trust the figures in both cases. In so short an interval of time the natural increase of population under the circumstances would be small; and the addition of more than 70,000 registered citizens to the lists cannot be explained in any way, not even by allowing that the number of registered citizens was considerably increased by the operation of the Agrarian law of Gracchus.

In this year Rome received a fresh supply of water. This was the Aqua Tepula, brought from the Ager Lucullanus, which, as Frontinus observes, some suppose to be the Tusculanum. The source of the Tepula was at the tenth or eleventh milestone near the Via Latina, and two miles from the right side of the road as a man went from Rome. The water was conveyed as far as the Capitol.

Caius Gracchus in his quaestorship in Sardinia showed his superiority over all the young men in the army of Orestes by his attention to his duties and his behaviour to the Sardinians. In a severe and unhealthy winter the commander had not sufficient clothing for his men, and he demanded supplies from the Sardinian cities, upon which the Sardinians sent commissioners to Rome praying to be relieved from the demand. The Senate granted the petition of the Sardinians, and told Orestes that he must supply himself in some other way. If the Senate could send nothing and Orestes was not allowed to take from the islanders what he wanted, the order to the governor was absurd. However Caius went round to the cities and persuaded them to send the clothing which was wanted. The Senate did not like this. They thought that it was a sign of future agitation. Plutarch has another story about Caius. Ambassadors came to Rome from Numidia from King Micipsa, the son of Massinissa, to inform the Senate that Micipsa had sent corn to the commander in Sardinia out of respect to Caius Gracchus. The Senate were offended at the message and would not receive the ambassadors. The story does not appear probable in all points, though it may be true that Micipsa sent corn to Sardinia in a time of scarcity. Sardinia, which contains good land and is a corn country, may have had a bad harvest, and the war would

impede the usual cultivation. The Senate withdrew the troops from Sardinia and sent others in their place, and they prolonged the government of Orestes for the year B.c. 125, intending by this device to keep Gracchus there as proquaestor. It seems that the command of Orestes was further extended to the year B.c. 124, and still with the view of keeping Caius from Rome. But he returned from Sardinia in this year without asking leave, and surprised every body by his sudden appearance at Rome. He was called to account by the censors for deserting his post, it being quite irregular for a quaestor to come home before his superior the proconsul. Caius defended himself in a speech of which Plutarch and Gellius have preserved some passages. He said that he had served in the army twelve years, though ten years only were required from others. Caius was enrolled among the Equites, and the ten years of the service of the Equites must be discharged within the first forty-six years of a man's life. If Caius was born in B.c. 154, as some suppose, he was now about thirty. He had therefore served in the armies of Rome since he was eighteen years of age; but yet we have seen that he is said to have been employed for part of the time since B.C. 133 as a commissioner under his brother's Agrarian law. It has been a matter of inquiry how the case of Gracchus came within the cognizance of the censors. Madvig suggests that this could only have been at the taking of the census, when the censors among their other duties reviewed the Equites. The censors took their station at the Forum and the Equites passed along the Via Sacra in front of them, each horseman on foot leading his horse, as Plutarch describes it in his life of Pompeius. Each man and his horse were examined by the censors, and if the man had discharged his time of service, the censors declared him released. it is possible that Caius returned to Rome to be present at the census, and to give up the 'public horse,' as the Romans called it, which he would have; and we may admit that the censors might consider his return as irregular, and punish him by the mark of ignominy and taking from him his horse. But then he must have returned to Rome in B.c. 125, for the census was held in this year, as we conclude from the

Now

authorities, though it is possible that the censors were elected in B.C. 125 and held the census in B.C. 124. Plutarch's story is that when the matter of Caius' return from Sardinia was brought before the censors, he asked permission to defend himself, and that he produced such a change in the opinions of the audience that he was acquitted. This is evidently an imperfect story, inconsistent with the nature of the office of the censors, whose mark of ignominy was fixed by their own judgment alone, from which there was no appeal. The censors may have given Caius a hearing afterwards and in public, for there is no doubt that he did make a speech before the censors, and about his return from Sardinia. Plutarch has given us part of what he said, and Gellius also has preserved some of his words. Plutarch makes him say that he had served as quaestor two years, and that the law allowed him to return at the end of one year. One year was the regular time for every Roman magistrate, nor could he hold office longer in the provinces unless the Senate or the people extended the time, or, as the Romans named it, prorogued' a man's authority; but the question is whether a quaestor could leave his superior when he pleased, if the authority of his superior was extended. Gellius distinctly says that the speech of Gracchus or rather a speech on the matter of his return was made before the people. He said, "I lived in the province in such way as I considered conducive to your interests, not to my own. ambition. There was no luxurious living in my quarters; no handsome slaves stood in waiting; and in my entertainments your children witnessed more propriety and decency than in the quarters of the general and his staff." Again he said: "I have behaved in such a way in the province that no man can truly charge me with receiving the smallest sum as a present: no man can say that he has been put to any cost on my account. Two years I was in the province. If any harlot ever entered my house, or if any attempt was ever made to corrupt any man's slave to serve my purpose, then believe me to be the lowest, the basest of all mankind. If I observed such strict chastity towards the slaves of the Sardinians, you may conclude from this how you ought to

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think that I lived among your own children." And further, Accordingly, Quirites, when I left Rome, I took my bags full of money, and I have brought them back from the province empty. Others have taken with them jars filled with wine; they have carried them back home stuffed with silver."

As our authorities are imperfect, it is impossible to say how the conduct of Caius in leaving Sardinia came before the censors, what the censors did, or how he escaped by addressing the people. As Caius had been quaestor and was now consequently capable of being placed by the censors on the rolls of the Senate, it is possible that his exclusion or threatened exclusion from the Senate was the matter on which he made his speech or speeches, if there was more than one. If, as some modern writers state without proof, the censors marked him with 'ignominia,' it is impossible that Caius could have been elected tribune in this year (B.c. 124), unless the same censors removed the 'ignominia;' or unless Caius was elected tribune in spite of the 'ignominia,' which is not credible. This story then of Caius being marked with 'ignominia' is an example of the perverse ingenuity of modern critics in fabricating facts, and not even taking the pains to see if their fiction is consistent with possibility.

But the enemies of Caius had still another charge against him. He was accused of having excited the people of Fregellae to revolt. There is only the authority of Aurelius Victor for affirming that he was tried on this charge and that L. Opimius the praetor presided. But Opimius was not praetor in B.C. 124, and there was then no court constituted for such a trial with a praetor to preside. As the evidence of Victor then is not true, and there is no other, the fact of his having been tried for high treason is not established. There is a passage in the fourth book of the Rhetoric addressed to Herennius, which passage may be a fragment of a speech which Caius delivered in answer to the imputation of having encouraged a people to revolt who had no means of resisting the power of Rome.

The consuls for B.C. 123 were Q. Caecilius Metellus and T. Quinctius Flamininus. Metellus was sent against the

Balearic Islands on some miserable pretext that the people were pirates, though, as far as we know, they had no ships. It is possible that some of the pirates who infested the Mediterranean may have occasionally put in at these islands. The two islands named Baleares, and by the Greeks called Gymnesiae, lie off that part of the Spanish coast which is between the Iberus (Ebro) and the Sucro (Xucar). The larger and the nearer to Spain is now Mallorca, commonly called Majorca; the smaller is Menorca. Both have good ports and a good soil and climate. The Phoenicians visited these islands at an early time, and the port Mago, now Mahon in Menorca, derives its name from some Phoenician or Carthaginian. There is also a tradition of some Rhodians having settled in these islands after the war of Troy, but we cannot suppose that they had more than a trading post there. The origin of the natives is unknown. They were a barbarous people. The Carthaginians employed them as slingers in their armies, as the Romans did afterwards. The men went to battle with a small shield and a javelin of wood hardened by being burnt at the end, or it was tipped with iron. But their formidable arm was the sling, and their aim was almost certain. They had neither gold nor silver to excite the cupidity of the Romans, but their land was worth having. The larger island Mallorca is a valuable possession. When the men of these islands served in the Carthaginian armies, they laid out their pay in buying female captives and wine, from which we must infer that they did not then cultivate the vine, and that both wine and women were articles which these barbarians prized highly. They made a feeble resistance to the Roman consul, who however, as he approached the coast, took the precaution to protect his men against the Balearic slingers by stretching skins above the decks of his ships. When the Romans landed, the barbarians were soon put to flight, pursued, and massacred.

Metellus founded two towns in Mallorca, Palma on the west coast, which retains its name, and Pollentia (Pollenza) on the north-east. He peopled his towns with three thousand colonists, whom he brought from the Roman settlements in the south of Spain, and there is no doubt that he gave