And now the plans of his enemies matured. It was said that the new colony at Carthage had been planted on the ground cursed by Scipio. Wolves had torn down the boundary-posts, which signified the wrath of the gods. The tribes were called to meet at the Capitol, and repeal the law for colonizing Carthage.
A tumult arose. A man who insulted Gracchus was slain by an unknown hand. The senate proclaimed Gracchus and his friends public enemies, and roused many of the people against him by parading the body of the slain man. Gracchus and his friends took up a position on the Aventine Hill. Here they were assailed by a strong armed force.
There was no resistance. Gracchus sought refuge at first in the Temple of Diana, and afterwards made his way to the Grove of the Furies, several of his friends dying in defence of his flight. A single slave accompanied him. When the grove was reached by his pursuers both were found dead. The faithful slave had pierced his master's heart, and then slain himself by the same sword.
Slaughter ruled in Rome. The Tiber flowed thick with the corpses of the friends of Gracchus, who were slain by the fierce patricians. The houses of the murdered reformers were plundered by the mob, for whose good they had lost their lives. For the time none dared speak the name of Gracchus except in reprobation. Yet he and his brother had done yeoman service for the ungrateful people of Rome.
Cornelia retired to Misenum, where she lived for many years. But she lived not in grief for her sons, but in pride and triumph. They had died the deaths of heroes and patriots, and she gloried in their fame, declaring that they had found worthy graves in the temples of the gods.
So came the people to think, in after-years, and they set up in the Forum a bronze statue to the great Roman matron, on which were inscribed only these words: To Cornelia, the Mother of the Gracchi.
JUGURTHA, THE PURCHASER OF ROME.
Masinissa, the valiant old king of Numidia, who had ravaged Carthage in its declining days, left his kingdom to his three sons. On the death of Micipsa, the last remaining of these, in 118 B.C., he, in turn, left the kingdom to his two sons. They were still young, and Jugurtha, their cousin, was appointed their guardian and the regent of the kingdom.