of Livius was, that he proposed nothing for himself or in behalf of his
own interests; for he appointed other persons to superintend the
establishment of the colonies, and he did not meddle with the
administration of the money, while Caius had assigned to himself most of
such functions, and the most important of them. It happened that
Rubrius, one of the tribunes, had proposed a measure for the
colonisation of Carthage, which had been destroyed by Scipio; and as the
lot fell on Caius, he set sail to Libya to found the colony. In his
absence, Drusus, making still further advances, insinuated himself into
the favour of the people, and gained them over mainly by calumniating
Fulvius.[103] This Fulvius was a friend of Caius and a joint
commissioner for the distribution of lands; but he was a noisy fellow,
and specially disliked by the senate; he was also suspected by others of
stirring up the allies, and secretly encouraging the Italians to revolt;
and though this was said without proof or inquiry, Fulvius himself gave
it credit by his unwise and revolutionary policy. This more than
anything else destroyed the popularity of Caius, who came in for his
share of the odium against Fulvius. And when Scipio[104] Africanus died
without any obvious cause, and certain signs of blows and violence were
supposed to be visible on the body, as I told in the Life of Scipio, the
suspicion fell chiefly on Fulvius, who was his enemy, and on that day
had abused Scipio from the Rostra. Suspicion attached to Caius also. So
abominable a crime committed against the first and greatest of the
Romans went unpunished, and there was not even an inquiry; for the many
opposed it and stopped the investigation through fear for Caius, lest he
should be discovered to be implicated in the murder. These events,
indeed, belong to an earlier period.
XI. In Libya, as to the foundation of Carthage,[105] which Caius named
Junonia, which is the same as Heraea, it is said there were many
supernatural hindrances. For the first standard was seized and broken by
a violent gust of wind, though the standard-bearer stuck to it
vigorously; and the victims which were lying on the altars were
dispersed by a tempest, and scattered beyond the stakes which marked the
limits of the city, and the stakes were torn up by the wolves and
carried a long way off. However Caius, after settling and arranging
everything in seventy days, returned to Rome upon hearing that Fulvius
was hard pressed by Drusus, and that affairs required his presence.
Lucius Opimius, a man who belonged to the faction of the oligarchs,[106]
and had great influence in the senate, failed on a former occasion when
he was a candidate for the consulship, at the time when Caius brought
forward Fannius and canvassed against Opimius; but now, being supported
by a powerful party, it was expected that Opimius would be elected
consul and would put down Caius, whose influence was already in some
degree on the wane, and the people also were tired of such measures as
his, for there were many who sought their favour, and the senate easily
gave way.
XII. On his return from Libya, Caius removed from the Palatium to the
neighbourhood of the Forum, as being a more popular place of residence,
for it happened that most of the lowest classes of the poor lived there;
he next promulgated the rest of his measures, intending to take the vote
of the people upon them. As crowds were collecting from all parts to
support Caius, the senate prevailed on the consul Fannius to drive out
of the city all who were not Romans. Accordingly a strange and unusual
proclamation was made, to the effect that none of the allies or friends
of the Roman state should appear in Rome during those days; on which
Caius published a counter edict, in which he criminated the consul and
promised his support to the allies if they remained in Rome. But he did
not keep his promise; for though he saw one of them, who was his own
friend and intimate, dragged off by the officers of Fannius, he passed
by without helping him, whether it was that he feared to put to the test
his power which was now on the decline, or that he did not choose, as he
said, to give his enemies the opportunity which they were seeking of
coming to a collision and a struggle. It also chanced that he had
incurred the ill-will of his fellow-colleagues, in the following
manner:--The people were going to see an exhibition of gladiators in the
Forum, and most of the magistrates had constructed seats round the
place, with the intention of letting them for hire. But Caius urged them
to remove the seats, that the poor might be able to see the show without
paying. As no one took any notice of what he said, he waited till the
night before the show, when he went with the workmen whom he had under
him, and removed the seats, and at daybreak he pointed out to the people
that the place was clear; for which the many considered him a man, but
he offended his colleagues, who viewed him as an audacious and violent
person. Owing to this circumstance, it is supposed, he lost his third
tribunate, though he had most votes, for it is said that his colleagues
acted illegally and fraudulently in the proclamation and return. This,
however, was disputed. Caius did not bear his failure well: and to his
enemies, who were exulting over him, he is said to have observed, with
more arrogance than was befitting, that their laugh was a sardonic
laugh,[107] for they knew not what a darkness his political measures
had spread all around them.
XIII. After effecting the election of Opimius to the consulship, the
enemies of Caius began to repeal many of his laws and to disturb the
settlement of Carthage, for the purpose of irritating Caius, in order
that he might give them some cause of quarrel, and so be got rid of. He
endured this for some time, but his friends, and especially Fulvius,
beginning to urge him on, he again attempted to combine his partisans
against the consul. On this occasion it is said that his mother also
helped him, by hiring men from remote parts and sending them to Rome in
the disguise of reapers, for it is supposed that these matters are
obscurely alluded to in her letters[108] to her son. Others, on the
contrary, say that this was done quite contrary to the wishes of
Cornelia. On the day on which the party of Opimius intended to repeal
the laws of Caius, the Capitol had been occupied by the opposite faction
early in the morning. The consul had offered the sacrifices, and one of
his officers, named Quintus Antyllius,[109] was carrying the viscera to
another part, when he said to the partisans of Fulvius, "Make way for
honest men, you rascals." Some say that as he uttered these words he
also held out his bare arm with insulting gestures. However this may be,
Antyllius was killed on the spot, being pierced with large styles[110]
said to have been made expressly for the purpose. The people were
greatly disturbed at the murder, but it produced exactly opposite
effects on the leaders of the two parties. Caius was deeply grieved at
what had happened, and abused his party for having given a handle to
their enemies, who had long been looking for it; but Opimius, as if he
had got the opportunity which he wanted, was highly elated, and urged
the people to avenge the murder.
XIV. A torrent of rain happened to fall just then, and the meeting was
dissolved. Early on the following day Opimius summoned the senate to
transact business. In the mean time the naked body of Antyllius was
placed on a bier, and, according to arrangement, carried through the
Forum past the senate-house with loud cries and lamentations. Opimius,
though he knew what was going on, pretended to be surprised at the
noise, and the senators went out to see what was the matter. When the
bier had been set down in the midst of the crowd, the senators began to
express their indignation at so horrible and monstrous a crime; but this
only moved the people to hate and execrate the oligarchs, who, after
murdering Tiberius Gracchus in the Capitol, a tribune, had treated his
body with insult; while Antyllius, a mere servant, who perhaps had not
deserved his fate, yet was mainly to blame for what happened, was laid
out in the Forum, and surrounded by the Roman senate lamenting and
assisting at the funeral of a hireling; and all this merely to
accomplish the ruin of the only remaining guardian of the people's
liberties. On returning to the senate-house, the senators passed a
decree[111] by which the consul Opimius was directed to save the state
in such way as he could, and to put down the tyrants. Opimius gave
notice to the senators to arm, and each eques was commanded to bring in
the morning two armed slaves. On the other side, Fulvius also made
preparation and got together a rabble; but Caius as he left the Forum
stood opposite his father's statue, and looking at it for some time
without speaking, at last burst into tears, and fetching a deep sigh,
walked away. The sight of this moved many of the spectators to
compassion, and blaming themselves for deserting the man and betraying
him, they came to the house of Caius and passed the night at his door;
but not in the same manner as those who watched about the house of
Fulvius, for they spent the night in tumult and shouting, drinking, and
bragging what they would do. Fulvius himself, who was the first to get
drunk, spoke and acted in a way quite unseemly for a man of his age. The
followers of Caius, viewing the state of affairs as a public calamity,
kept quiet, thinking of the future, and they passed the night watching
and sleeping in turns.
XV. At daybreak Fulvius was with difficulty roused from his drunken
sleep, and his partisans, arming themselves with the warlike spoils in
his house, which he had taken in his victory over the Gauls during his
consulship, with loud threats and shouts went to seize the Aventine
Hill.[112] Caius would not arm, but went out in his toga just as if he
was proceeding to the Forum, with only a short dagger at his side. As he
was going out at the door, his wife met him, and throwing one arm round
him, while she held in the other their little child, said, "Caius, not
as in time past do I take my leave of you going to the Rostra as tribune
and as legislator, nor yet going to a glorious war, where, if you died
in the service of your country, you would still leave me an honoured
grief; but you are going to expose yourself to the murderers of
Tiberius: 'tis right indeed to go unarmed, and to suffer rather than do
wrong, but you will perish without benefiting the state. The worst has
now prevailed; force and the sword determine all controversies. If your
brother had died at Numantia, his body would have been restored to us on
the usual terms of war; but now perchance I too shall have to
supplicate some river or the sea to render up to me your corpse from its
keeping. What faith can we put in the laws or in the deities since the
murder of Tiberius?" While Licinia was thus giving vent to sorrow,
Gracchus gently freed himself from his wife's embrace, and went off in
silence with his friends. Licinia, as she attempted to lay hold of his
dress, fell down on the floor, and lay there some time speechless, until
her slaves took her up fainting, and carried her to her brother Crassus.
XVI. When they were all assembled, Fulvius, at the request of Caius,
sent his younger son with a caduceus[113] to the Forum. He was a most
beautiful youth, and with great decorum and modesty, and with tears in
his eyes he addressed to the consul and the senate the message of
conciliation. The majority who were present were not disinclined to come
to terms; but Opimius replied, that Fulvius and Gracchus must not
attempt to bring the senate to an accommodation through the medium of a
messenger; they must consider themselves as citizens who had to account
for their conduct, and come down and surrender, and then beg for mercy;
he further told the youth that these were the terms on which he must
come a second time, or not at all. Now Caius, it is said, wished to go
and clear himself before the senate, but as no one else assented,
Fulvius again sent his son to address the senate on their behalf in the
same terms as before. But Opimius, who was eager to come to blows,
forthwith ordered the youth to be seized and put in prison, and advanced
against the party of Fulvius with many legionary soldiers and Cretan
bowmen[114] who mainly contributed to put them into confusion by
discharging their arrows and wounding them. The partisans of Fulvius
being put to flight, he made his escape into a bath that was not used
where he was soon discovered and put to death with his elder son. Caius
was not observed to take any part in the contest, but greatly troubled
at what was taking place, he retired to the temple of Diana, and was
going to kill himself there, but was prevented by his faithful friends
Pomponius and Licinius, who took the sword away and induced him to fly.
It is said that he went down on his knees in the temple, and stretching
out his hands to the statue of the goddess, prayed that the Roman
people, for their ingratitude and treachery to him, might always be
slaves; for the greater part of them had openly gone over to the other
side upon an amnesty[115] being proclaimed.
XVII. In his flight Caius was followed by his enemies, who were near
overtaking him at the wooden bridge,[116] but his two friends, bidding
him make his escape, opposed the pursuers and allowed no man to pass the
head of the bridge till they were killed. Caius was accompanied by a
single slave, named Philocrates,[117] and though all the spectators
urged him to fly, just as if they were shouting at a race, yet no one,
though he prayed for it, would come to his aid or lend him a horse: for
the pursuers were close upon him. He just escaped into a sacred grove of
the Furies,[118] and there he fell by the hand of Philocrates, who
killed himself on the body of his master. Some say both of them were
taken alive by their enemies, and that the slave embraced his master so
closely, that Caius could not be struck until the slave had been
dispatched first, and with many blows. It is said that a man cut off the
head of Caius and was carrying it away, but it was taken from him by a
friend of Opimius named Septimuleius; for proclamation had been made at
the beginning of the contest, that those who brought the heads of Caius
and Fulvius should have their weight in gold. The head of Caius was
brought to Opimius by Septimuleius stuck on a spear, and it weighed
seventeen pounds and two-thirds in the scales. Septimuleius was a
scoundrel and a knave[119] here also, for he had taken out the brain and
dropped melted lead in its place. Those who brought the head of Fulvius
got nothing, for they belonged to the lower class. The bodies of Caius
and Fulvius and their partisans were thrown into the river, the number
of dead being three thousand: their property was sold and the produce
paid into the treasury. They also forbade the women to lament for their
relatives, and Licinia was deprived of her marriage portion. But their
conduct was most cruel to the younger son of Fulvius, who had neither
raised up his hand against them nor been among the combatants; for he
was seized before the battle, when he came to treat of terms, and was
put to death after the battle. But what most of all vexed the people was
the circumstance of Opimius erecting a temple to Concord, which was
viewed as an evidence of his insolence and arrogance, and as a kind of
triumph for the slaughter of so many citizens. Accordingly by night some
person wrote under the inscription on the temple the following line:--
The work of Discord[120] makes the temple of Concord.
XVIII. This Opimius,[121] the first man that ever exercised the
dictatorial power in the office of consul, and who had condemned without
trial three thousand citizens, and among them Caius Gracchus and Fulvius
Flaccus[122]--Flaccus, a consular, who had enjoyed a triumph; Gracchus,
the first man of his age in character and reputation--this Opimius did
not keep himself free from corruption. Being sent as a commissioner to
Jugurtha, the Numidian, he was bribed by him, and being convicted of
most shameful corruption, he spent the last years of his life in infamy,
hated and insulted by the people, who, though humbled and depressed for
the time, soon showed how much they desired and regretted the Gracchi.
For they had statues of the two brothers made and set up in public
places, and the spots on which they fell were declared sacred ground, to
which people brought all the first fruits of the seasons, and many
persons daily offered sacrifices there and worshipped, just as at the
temples of the gods.
XIX. 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.[123]
COMPARISON OF TIBERIUS AND CAIUS GRACCHUS WITH AGIS AND KLEOMENES.
I. Now that we have completed the narrative of these men's lives, it
remains for us to compare them with one another. As for the Gracchi, not
even their bitterest enemies could deny that they were the most virtuous
of all the Romans, or that they were excellently well nurtured and
educated; while Agis and Kleomenes appear to have excelled them in
strength of mind, because they both, after having been brought up in the
same fashion by which their elders had been corrupted, became the
restorers of temperance and simplicity of life. Furthermore, the
Gracchi, who lived at a period when Rome was at the height of its
greatness and renown, felt ashamed to fall short of the glorious
achievements of their forefathers; while the virtuous impulses of the
others were not checked by their fathers having pursued the opposite
course of policy, or by the miserable and distracted condition of their
country. The greatest proof of the unselfishness and indifference to
money of the Gracchi is that they filled various offices in the state,
and yet kept their hands clean from dishonest gains; while it would be
an insult to Agis to praise him for not having taken other men's money,
as he gave up to his countrymen his own private property, which alone
was worth six hundred talents. If then he thought it discreditable for
him to be richer than any of his countrymen, even though his riches were
lawfully acquired, what must have been his abhorrence of those who
obtain money wrongfully.
II. There was also a great difference in the boldness and extent of
their schemes of reform. The Gracchi were chiefly engaged in the
construction of roads and the founding of cities, and Tiberius's most
important measure of reform was the division of the public lands among
the people, while the best act of his brother Caius was the
establishment of a mixed tribunal by adding to the three hundred
Senators three hundred Roman Knights. The revolution effected by Agis
and Kleomenes was of quite a different kind. They thought, in Plato's
words, that to proceed by slow degrees was merely cutting off the heads
of the hydra,[124] and therefore they by one comprehensive measure swept
away all abuses at once: although it would be nearer the truth to say
that they swept all abuses out of the state by restoring to it its
original constitution. It may also be observed that the reforms of the
Gracchi were opposed by some of the most powerful men in Rome, whereas
the legislation which was begun by Agis, and completed by Kleomenes,
followed a famous and ancient precedent, the rhetras on sobriety and
equality which had been communicated to their ancestors by Lykurgus with
the sanction of the Pythian Apollo. It is also most important to notice
that the reforms of the Gracchi made Rome no greater than she was
before, while the acts of Kleomenes enabled him in a short time to make
Sparta mistress of the whole of Peloponnesus, and to engage in a contest
with the most powerful man of his time, with the object of ridding
Greece from Illyrian and Gaulish mercenary troops, and of renewing its
ancient glories under the rule of the Herakleidæ.
III. I think too that the deaths of these men show a certain difference
in their courage. The Gracchi fought with their countrymen, and were
slain by them while flying, while of the other two, Agis may almost be
said to have died voluntarily, because he would not put a citizen to
death, while Kleomenes, when insulted and ill-treated, fiercely
attempted to avenge himself, and as circumstances prevented his
succeeding, bravely killed himself. It may be said on the other side
that Agis never distinguished himself in the field, and we may set
against the many brilliant victories of Kleomenes the scaling of the
wall of Carthage by Tiberius Gracchus, no slight achievement, and the
peace which he made with the Numantines, by which he saved the lives of
twenty thousand Roman soldiers, who could not otherwise have hoped to
survive; while Caius, in several campaigns both in Italy and Sardinia,
showed great military skill; so that they both might have rivalled the
fame of the greatest generals of Rome, had they not been cut off so
soon.
IV. In political matters Agis appears to have shown weakness, as he
allowed Agesilaus to cheat the citizens out of their promised
redistribution of lands, and in a feeble and vacillating manner
announced his intention and then abandoned it. The cause of his
irresolution was his extreme youth; while Kleomenes on the other hand
effected his revolution with too great promptitude and daring, putting
the Ephors to death without a trial, when it would have been easy for
him to have won them over to his side, and banishing many of the
citizens. It is not the part either of a wise physician or of a good
politician to use the knife except in the last extremity, but it shows a
want of skill in both, and in the latter case it is unjust as well as
cruel. Of the Gracchi, neither would begin a civil war, and Caius is
said not even to have defended himself when struck, but though forward
enough in battle he was loth to fight in a party quarrel; for he
appeared in public unarmed, and retired when fighting began, and
evidently took more pains not to do any harm than not to suffer any. For
this reason we must regard the flight of both the Gracchi as a proof,
not of cowardice, but of caution; for they must either have retreated
when attacked or have retaliated upon their opponents.