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Updated: May 13, 2025
Would, O would, that Longinus could have returned to Palmyra with me! and then, for the first time, Gracchus gave way to grief, and wept aloud. In the morning we set out for Palmyra. Farewell. Letter XVII. I write again from Palmyra. We arrived here after a day's hard travel.
Such were the political speeches of Gaius Laelius and of Scipio Aemilianus, masterpieces of excellent Latin as of the noblest patriotism; such were the gushing speeches of Gaius Titius, from whose pungent pictures of the place and the time his description of the senatorial juryman has been given already the national comedy borrowed various points; such above all were the numerous orations of Gaius Gracchus, whose fiery words preserved in a faithful mirror the impassioned earnestness, the aristocratic bearing, and the tragic destiny of that lofty nature.
Gracchus Babeuf and his fellows were treated as criminals, and died or suffered the torture of prison for attempting to put into practice those words which the Republic still carried on its banners, and Liberty, Fraternity, and Equality were interpreted in a middle-class, or if you please a Jesuitical, sense, as the rewards of success for those who could struggle into an exclusive class; and at last property had to be defended by a military adventurer, and the Revolution seemed to have ended with Napoleonism.
When Titius not long after died, the proverbial fate that had been observed from of old was once more in evidence. No one up to that time who had expelled a colleague had lived the year out: but first Brutus after the expulsion of Collatinus died in his turn, then Gracchus was stabbed after expelling Octavius, and Cinna who put Marullus and Flavus out of the way not long after perished.
In moments of calm Gracchus may have believed that his reforms were but a renewed illustration of that genius for compromise out of which the Roman constitution had grown, and that he had but created new and necessary defences against a recently developed absolutism; but, in the heat of the conflict into which he was soon plunged, his vindictive fancy saw but the gloomier aspect of his new creation, and he boasted that the struggle for the courts was a dagger which he had hurled into the Forum, an instrument which the possessor would use to mangle the body of his opponent.
Have we not yet enough to be ashamed of, in having confused and disorganized the state?" So spoke not the anxious mother, but the daughter of the conqueror of Carthage, who knew and experienced a misfortune yet greater than the death of her children. The Revolution and Gaius Gracchus The Commisssion for Distributing the Domains
Soon after the death of Gracchus a rebellion broke out in Sicily among the slaves, who, exasperated by the cruelties exercised upon them by their masters, revolted, and having seized Enna, chose one Eunus for their king. This new monarch gained considerable advantages over the Romans, took the strong city of Tauromin'ium, and protracted the war upwards of six years.
The last device had not yet been attempted. It remained for Gracchus to try it. We have no analysis of his motives; but many provocatives to his modest attempt at state socialism may be suggested.
The penalty for the crime was doubtless a capital one, and by ancient prescription such a punishment necessitated a trial before the Assembly of the Centuries. It is, however, possible that Gracchus rendered the plebeian assembly of the Tribes competent to pronounce the capital sentence against the magistrate who had violated the prescriptions of his law.
But he was a brave and steady citizen, and a warm opposer of Gracchus, as appears from an Oration of Gracchus against him: we have likewise some of Tubero's speeches against Gracchus. He was not indeed a shining Orator: but he was a learned, and a very skilfull disputant.
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