Cicero, whose principles or professions varied with circumstances, spoke in favourable terms of the Gracchi soon after he was elected consul and when such talk served his purpose. Later in life he spoke and wrote differently. He says that Tiberius Gracchus aimed at kingly power, or rather in fact was king for a few months. He praises the murderers of Tiberius, and deplores the hard fate of Opimius after he had done the state so great a service, as he expresses it, by putting Caius Gracchus to death. Yet Cicero knew that Opimius besides suppressing an insurrection or an alleged insurrection, which he was justified in doing under the commission of the Senate, was accused of illegal and cruel treatment of the partizans of Caius after they were defeated and dispersed, and that he was afterwards convicted of selling the public interests for a bribe. It is true that a man's subsequent knavery does not alter the character of any previous service that he may have done to the state; but Cicero talks as if the merits of Opimius in suppressing the insurrection were so great that they ought to have saved him from punishment for his subsequent corrupt practices. It is Cicero to whom we trace the opinion which has generally prevailed in modern times that the Gracchi were merely pestilent demagogues. They were certainly violent reformers, and neither wise enough nor firm enough in their purposes. They did not correctly estimate the difficulties of the task which they proposed nor their means of accomplishing the changes which they supposed to be beneficial to the state. But though they were turbulent and ambitious, we can hardly refuse them the small praise of having had good intentions. It is impossible to say what Caius and Fulvius were going to do when they were overpowered by force. They may have only intended to defend themselves against violence, and this seems the more probable supposition. But it is possible that they designed to overawe the Senate, or that Fulvius at least did, for he was a passionate man and had no judgment. Caius would neither leave his party nor fight. On the last day of his life he was feeble and irresolute, as an honest man always will be when he is leagued with men whose acts he

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cannot entirely approve. We may perhaps justly estimate the feelings of the noble-minded young Roman, if we assume that he chose rather to die by the hand of a faithful slave than to be the victim of Opimius' vengeance, or to fall in an ignoble fight against his own country. The Senate crushed the insurrection promptly and justly. No government can parley with citizens who have arms in their hands. But the Senate used their advantage meanly, and their conduct after the defeat of the insurgents is a proof that they were animated by a spirit of vengeance and a resolution to destroy a political party.

The loss of the orations of the two brothers is an irreparable damage to Roman history. It is a literary loss too, if we accept Cicero's judgment, for though he has in some passages qualified his praise of the eloquence of the Gracchi, he admits in one place that with the exception of two men, whom he had heard himself, L. Licinius Crassus and M. Antonius, the Gracchi were the most eloquent of the Romans. Their orations were still read in the second century of our aera. M. Aurelius Antoninus in a letter written when he was a young man to his master in rhetoric, Fronto, says that he was delighted with the orations of Gracchus, meaning prðbably Caius, and that he had read them on his old teacher's recommendation. The letters of Cornelia have perished also with the exception of the few doubtful fragments which have been mentioned. Most of her letters may have been on trifling matters and on the ordinary affairs of life, which make up the chief material of epistolary correspondence. But they would not have been the less valuable on that account. We should have had a sample of that pure Latin which some of the noble ladies of Rome spoke and wrote. We know no more of Cornelia after the death of her sons than what Plutarch has recorded in one of his most touching passages. "Cornelia is said to have borne her misfortunes with a noble and elevated spirit, and to have said of the sacred ground on which her sons were murdered, that they had a tomb worthy of them. She resided in the neighbourhood of Misenum without making any change in her usual mode of life. She had many friends, and her hospitable

table was always crowded with guests: Greeks and learned men were constantly about her, and kings sent and received presents from her. To all her visitors and friends she was a most agreeable companion: she would tell them of the life and habits of her father Africanus, and what is most surprising, would speak of her sons without showing sorrow or shedding a tear, relating their sufferings and their deeds to her inquiring friends as if she was speaking of the men of olden time. This made some think that her understanding had been impaired by old age or the greatness of her sorrows, and that she was dull to all sense of her misfortunes, while in fact such people themselves were too dull to see what a support it is against grief to have a noble nature and to be of honourable lineage and honourably bred; and that though fortune has often the advantage over virtue in its attempts to guard against evils, yet she cannot take away from virtue the power of enduring them with fortitude."

CHAPTER XX.

OPTIMATES AND POPULARES.

A MAN who has studied the history of the Gracchi, and has been accustomed to reflect on political matters, may form a just conception of the state of parties at that time in the Roman Commonwealth. But all persons will not take the pains to examine facts patiently, nor are all persons able to deduce from facts their true meaning. We are deceived by words in the affairs of life, and most of all when words are used to express political notions. It may be useful then to explain the state of parties at Rome during and after the time of the Gracchi, even at the risk of a little repetition.

The opposition of Patricians and Plebeians in the early Republic is now sufficiently understood. It was the opposition between a small number, who held the political power and had the superintendence of religion, and a larger body who claimed recognition as a political element in the state. The struggle between the two bodies was conducted with more moderation than contests, for political equality among any other people, for it has been observed that the extreme measure which the Plebeians resorted to, a secession from Rome, was a mode of defence rather than attack. The Plebeians tried this policy first in B.C. 494, and for the last time in B.C. 287. The first secession was followed by the establishment of the Tribunician authority for the protection of the Plebeians. The contest between the two bodies still continued, but the Patricians vigorously maintained their

position, and it was only at long intervals and step by step that the Plebeians gained what the Patricians possessed and wished to keep to themselves.

When the Plebeians were made eligible to the consulship by the law of C. Licinius Stolo, B.C. 367, the way was opened for the beginning of a new kind of Nobility; for the Patricians of the early Republic as opposed to the Plebeians were a nobility, though they were designated by another name. The new nobility, the Nobles, as that term has been already explained, arose from the admission of Plebeians to the high offices of the state; and these Nobles would attach themselves to the old nobility, to the Patrician order, and not to the body from which they sprung. But in fact the new Nobles in the course of time formed a political party themselves, in which the Patricians as the smaller number were merged.

When the Plebeians had attained all that was necessary to place them on a footing of political equality with the Patricians, the descendants of the original citizens of Rome, and when out of their own body a new nobility had gradually grown up, the character of the internal contest changed, but the contest did not cease; for in every free state the opposition of parties is a necessity. The contest between the Patricians and Plebeians had made Rome powerful and free. The rivalry of opposing factions caused the destruction of the commonwealth.

The direct means by which a Roman acquired place and power were the votes of his fellow-citizens. The indirect means were bribery and intimidation by which the votes were secured. Wealth, and office as the means of getting wealth, were the sole object of a Roman's ambition; and thus when the close of the Second Punic War had given external security to Rome, and her dominion beyond Italy was extended, the greediness of the Roman commanders and magistrates was unbounded. Rome plundered every nation that she subdued, and her annually-elected magistrates plundered the people whose country was reduced to the form of a Roman province. The foreign possessions of Rome were considered as the property of the Roman people, as a source of wealth to the Romans. But it was not by the exchange of the products of