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Updated: May 3, 2025
The appeal to sentiment might have been successful, had not the most sordid passions of the mob been immediately inflamed by the oratory of the opponents of the measure. The most formidable of these opponents was drawn from the ranks of Gracchus's own supporters; for the franchise question had again proved a rock which could make shipwreck of the unity of the democratic party.
The news of Gracchus's fall had been brought to Scipio in the camp before Numantia; his epitaph on the murdered tribune was that which the stern Hellenic goddess of justice and truth breathes over the slain Aegisthus: So perish all who do the like again. To Scipio Gracchus's undertaking must have seemed an act of impudent folly, its conduct must have appeared something worse than madness.
Why should not the same be true of a new twist in domestic policy? Secondly, the opposition of the senate to Gracchus's reforms was based far more decidedly on political than on economic grounds. The frenzy which seized the fathers during the closing act of the tribune's life, was excited by his comprehensive onslaught on their monopoly of provincial, fiscal and judicial administration.
Gracchus's arms were round his opponent's neck; broken appeals fell from his lips the old one that he should not break the heart of the people: the new one that he should not cause his own degradation, and leave a bitter memory in the mind of the author of his fall. Observers saw that Octavius's heart was touched; his eyes were filled with tears, and for some time he kept a troubled silence.
An oblique reflection on the disinterestedness of Gracchus's efforts was further given in the clause which created the commissioners for the foundation of these new colonies, Drusus's name did not appear in the list. He asked nothing for himself, nor would he touch the large sums of money which must flow through the hands of the commissioners for the execution of so vast a scheme.
Such land is mentioned as having been "given and assigned in accordance with a resolution of the people and the plebs," and all eases in which recent colonial laws had been repealed or dropped cases which would include Caius Gracchus's threatened partition of the Campanian territory are tacitly excluded.
It was impossible, however, to accept the situation in its entirety; for to recognise the whole of Gracchus's career as legitimate was to set a dangerous precedent for the future. The large army of the respectable, the bulwark of senatorial power, had not been sufficiently alarmed. It was necessary to emphasise the fact that there had been an outrageous sedition on the part of the lower classes.
It is probable that Drusus's announcement caused an entire suspension of the legal machinery connected with the franchise bill, and that its author never ventured to bring it to the vote. It is possible that to this stage of Gracchus's career belongs a proposal which he promulgated for a change in the order of voting at the Comitia Centuriata.
The fugitive had now but a single slave to bear him company in his flight; it led them through frequented streets, where the passers-by stopped on their way, cheered them on as though they were witnessing a contest of speed, but gave no sign of help and turned deaf ears to Gracchus's pleading for a horse; for the pursuers were close behind, and the dulled and panic-stricken mob had no thought but for themselves.
France swarms with Gracchus's and Publicolas, who by imaginary assimilations of acts, which a change of manners has rendered different, fancy themselves more than equal to their prototypes.* * The vicissitudes of the revolution, and the vengeance of party, have brought half the sages of Greece, and patriots of Rome, to the Guillotine or the pillory.
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