C. Gracchus.
5. These palliative remedies, however, availed nothing after the return of C. Gracchus from Sicily with a full determination to tread in the footsteps of his brother. Like him, it is true, he fell a victim to his enterprise; but the storm that he raised during the two years of his tribunate fell so much the more heavily, as the popular excitement was more general, and from his possessing more of the shining talents necessary to form a powerful demagogue than his brother.
First tribunate of C. Gracchus, 123. Renewal of the agrarian law, and rendering its provisions more strict. Nevertheless, as he increased the fermentation by his popular measures and by acting the demagogue, and obtained the renewal of the tribunate for the following year, 122, he so far extended his plan, as to render it not only highly dangerous to the aristocracy, but even to the state itself. Establishment of distributions of corn to the poor people. Plan for the formation of the knights (ordo equestris) into a political body, as a counterbalance to the senate, by conferring on it the right of administering justice, (judicia,) which was taken from the senate. Still more important project of granting to the Italian allies the privileges of Roman citizenship; and also the formation of colonies, not only in Campania, but also out of Italy, in Carthage. The highly refined policy of the senate, however, by lessening this man of the people in the eyes of his admirers, through the assistance of the tribune Livius Drusius, prevented his complete triumph; and, once declining, Gracchus soon experienced the fate of every demagogue, whose complete fall is then irretrievable. General insurrection, and assassination of C. Gracchus, 121.
Victory of the aristocratic faction.
6. The victory of the aristocratic faction was this time not only much more certain and bloody, they turned the advantages it gave them to such good account, that they eluded the agrarian law of Gracchus, and indeed, at last, completely abrogated it. But the seeds of discord already disseminated, especially among the Italian allies, could not be so soon checked, when once the subjects of these states had conceived the idea that they were entitled to a share in the government. How soon these party struggles might be renewed, or indeed a civil war break out, depended almost entirely upon foreign circumstances, and the chance of a bolder leader being found.
Agrarian law evaded: at first by repealing an act which prohibited the transfer of the national lands already divided, whereby the patricians were enabled to buy them again;—afterwards by the lex Thoria: complete stop put to all further divisions, a land-tax, to be distributed among the people, being instituted in its stead; but even this latter was very soon annulled.
† D. H. Hegewisch, History of the Civil Wars of the Gracchi. Altona, 1801.
† History of the Revolution of the Gracchi in my Miscellaneous Historical Works. Vol. iii. 1821.
Effects of this party-spirit in corrupting the nation.
7. Visible effects of this party spirit upon public morals, which now began to decline the more rapidly, in proportion to the increase of foreign connections. Neither the severity of the censorship, nor the laws against luxury (leges sumtuariæ), nor those which now became necessary against celibacy, could be of much service in this respect. This degeneracy was not only to be found in the cupidity of the higher ranks, but also in the licentiousness of the lower orders.