Lucius Aurelius subdued the rebellious Sardinians, [Y. R. 624. B. C.
128.] Marcus Fulvius Flaccus, who first subdued the Transalpine
Ligurians, was sent to assist the Massilians, against the Salvian Gauls,
who were ravaging their country. Lucius Opimius, the prætor, caused the
revolted Fregellans to lay down their arms, and destroyed Fregellæ. [Y.
R. 625. B. C. 127.] An extraordinary multitude of locusts in Africa,
killed and lying dead on the ground, is said to have produced a
pestilence, [Y. R. 626. B. C. 126.] The censors closed the lustrum: the
number of the citizens was three hundred and ninety thousand seven
hundred and thirty-six. [Y. R. 627. B. C. 125.] Caius Gracchus, the
plebeian tribune, the brother of Tiberius, even more eloquent than his
brother, carried some very dangerous laws; among others, one respecting
corn, that the people shall be supplied with the article in the market
at the rate of half and a third of an _as_; also an Agrarian law, the
same as his brother’s: and a third intended to corrupt the equestrian
order, who at that time were subservient in all their opinions to the
senate: namely, that six hundred of them should be admitted into the
senate: these six hundred equestrians were to be joined to three hundred
senators for at that time there were only three hundred senators; that
is, in other words, that the equestrian order should have double
influence in the senate. His office being continued to him another year,
by Agrarian laws which he passed, he caused that many colonies should be
led out into Italy, and he himself, having been made triumvir, headed
one to the territory of demolished Carthage, [Y. R. 628. B. C. 124.] The
successful expeditions of the consul Quintus Metellus against the
Balearians, called by the Greeks Gymnesians, because they go naked all
the summer, are recorded. They are called Balearians, from their skill
in throwing weapons; or, as some will have it, from Baleus, the
companion of Hercules, who left him there behind him, when he sailed to
Geryon. [Y. R. 629. B. C. 123.] Commotions in Syria, in which Cleopatra
murders her husband Demetrius, and also his son Seleucus, for assuming
the crown without her consent, upon his father’s death, are also
mentioned.