them land. The Roman method of settling a colony was simple and successful. They had no scruples about dealing with barbarians, and no perplexing disputes about native titles to the land. They settled at once a population sufficient to protect itself, and gave the settlers land to cultivate. Metellus thus added a new colony to the increasing dominions of Rome, planted the Latin language and Roman civilization on a barbarous soil, and he gained for himself the title of Balearicus and a triumph. Metellus was one of the four sons of Q. Caecilius Metellus Macedonicus, one of the most fortunate of the Romans. This Metellus, the conqueror of the pretender to the Macedonian throne, filled all the highest offices in the state, and when he died in B.C. 115, at a good old age, his four sons carried him on his couch to the Rostra, where his funeral oration was delivered. One son had been consul and censor, a second had been consul, a third was consul at the time of his father's death, and the fourth was elected consul two years after.

CHAPTER XVIII.

CAIUS GRACCHUS TRIBUNE.

B.C. 124-123.

IN B.C. 124 Caius was a candidate for the Tribunate. He was opposed by all the nobility, but the people, who expected great things from him, were on his side. At the election there were crowds from all parts of Italy. As the law of Pennus forbade the Peregrini to come to Rome, we must infer that the law was not executed, and it is difficult to conceive how it could be. The voters from the country came to Rome, and those who had no votes came too. They came to see the sight, and to encourage by their numbers the man who was expected to regenerate Italy. So many flocked to Rome that there were not lodgings sufficient for them; and the Campus Martius could not contain the crowd, says Plutarch, who supposed that the election took place there. Even the house-tops were crowded with spectators. The opposition to Caius was so far successful that he did not stand at the head of the poll. He was only fourth out of the ten Tribunes who were returned. He entered on his office on the usual day, the tenth of December, B.C. 124.

If we could trust the authority of two fragments of Cornelia's letters to Caius, we might affirm that it was against her will that Caius sought the Tribunate: she wished to have one son at least to comfort her old age, and she urged Caius not to be a candidate until after her death. Most recent critics have refused to acknowledge the genuineness of these few lines attributed to Cornelia. The subject of the Gracchi was a favourite rhetorical topic in the Imperial period, when

declamation was cultivated at Rome; and these writers of speeches would corrupt the facts of history. But the corruption of history by the essays of the rhetoricians began before the Empire. Cicero, who was neither well acquainted with Roman history nor careful about facts, was also unscrupulous in making false statements when they served his purpose. He did it in his orations and in other writings too. It has been argued with respect to these two fragments of Cornelia, that though they may not be genuine, and only a part of some rhetorical exercise, they may still be founded on expressions in the genuine letters of Cornelia or on an historical fact. This is certainly possible, and we can say no more. But if these fragments belong to some rhetorical declamation, the writer has manifestly attempted to imitate an archaic style; and the character of the style is an argument for the genuineness of the fragments.

Caius could now talk to the people as much as he liked. He stirred up their enmity against the nobility by often reminding them of his brother's death. In former times, he said, the Roman people made war on the Falisci because they had insulted a Roman Tribune; "but before your eyes these men beat Tiberius to death with staves, and his body was dragged through the midst of the city to be thrown into the Tiber; and all his friends who were caught were put to death without trial. And yet it is an old usage among us, if a man is accused of a capital charge and does not appear, for a trumpeter to come to the door of the house in the morning and summon him by the sound of the trumpet, and the Judices cannot vote upon the charge till this is done. So circumspect and careful were the Romans of old in the trials of persons accused." It is probably from this oration that Cicero has quoted some words which were in every body's mouth when he was a boy: "Where shall an unhappy man like myself fly for protection? To the Capitol? But it streams with my brother's blood. To my own house? What, to see my wretched mother weeping and in despair?" All this was accompanied with such expression of the eyes, such tone, and such gesture, that even his enemies could not refrain from tears. Rome never had a popular orator with such powerful motives to action and such great abilities.

Caius had his brother's death to avenge and to humble an aristocracy whom he hated; and they feared him. His voice was powerful, and his action was full of life and energy. Cicero doubts if ever he had an equal. His language, says Cicero, was elevated, his thoughts full of wisdom, his style grave and solemn: the finishing touch was wanting'; there was much which was excellently designed, but it was not brought to absolute perfection. This orator, he adds, is worth reading by our young men, if any is, for his orations are adapted not only to sharpen a man's understanding, but to give it matter to feed on. Caius was the great model of all the Roman orators before Cicero's time. Plutarch has contrasted the manner of the two brothers in a lively way, and, as far as we can judge from what others have said, he has done it truly. "In the character and the expression of his countenance and in his movements Tiberius was mild and sedate; Caius was animated and impetuous. When Tiberius harangued the people, he would stand composedly on one spot, but Caius was the first Roman who moved about on the Rostra, and pulled his toga from his shoulder while he was speaking, as Cleon the Athenian is said to have been the first popular orator at Athens who threw his cloak from him and struck his thigh. The manner of Caius was awe-striking and vehemently impassioned; the manner of Tiberius was more pleasing and calculated to stir the sympathies: the language of Tiberius was pure and elaborated to great nicety; that of Caius was persuasive and exuberant." The impetuosity of Caius and his passion sometimes overpowered his judgment and his voice became shrill. He would then scream as such men do; and Plutarch adds, he would fall to abuse and grow confused in his discourse. To remedy this fault, as Cicero and Plutarch tell us, though in a somewhat different way, a man named Licinius used to stand behind Caius with a musical instrument, yet so that he was not seen, when Caius was addressing the people. His business was to produce a suitable note to rouse the orator when his tone was too low, or to lower the tone when it was too high.

In the beginning of his tribunate when Caius was going to

1 See Cicero's criticism, Orat. c. 70.

propose those measures by which he attempted to cure the corruption of the Roman state, he addressed the people in a speech which was entitled "on the laws" which he had promulgated; which word "promulgated" has not the meaning that we have fixed on the word in our language. The promulgation of a law in the Roman sense was a public notice of the terms of a law which was going to be proposed to the popular assembly. Caius saw the danger of the contest which he was going to provoke, and he felt, or affected to feel, unwillingness to attempt reforms which might cost him his life. "If," he said to the people, "I had chosen to address you and to ask that, as I am sprung of a noble race, and have lost my brother in your service, and there is none left of the family of P. Africanus and Tiberius Gracchus except myself and my young son, you would allow me at this critical time to remain quiet in order that our family may not utterly perish, and that some remnant of our race may be preserved, I do not think that I should readily have obtained my request."

Caius entered on his revolutionary career with a foreboding that he should perish. We have the evidence of his dream which he told, and here we have his words, which are to the same effect. His foresight was just, and he saw clearer than some men have done who have expected to make an easy revolution. But revolution, as it has been often and truly remarked, devours its own children, the bold, the brave, and sometimes the good. Those who reap the fruit come in when the storm is over, or people are wearied and seek for repose in any way that they can find it. The course of Caius was violent and often illegal. He attempted to overthrow a powerful aristocracy without sufficient means to do it, which is one of the commonest causes of failure in every thing that men attempt. There is only one way of effecting a violent and successful revolution. It must be done in such a way, if it can be done at all, that the power which is destroyed shall never raise its head again. But a popular movement has never yet accomplished such a revolution; and even if Caius had destroyed the power of the nobility, Rome after a brief period would only have exchanged a century sooner the