Titus Sempronius Gracchus, the plebeian tribune, having proposed an Agrarian law, (contrary to the sense of the senate, and the equestrian order,) to the effect that no person should hold more than five hundred acres of the public lands, wrought himself up to such a degree of passion that he deprived his colleague, Marcus Octavius, of his authority by a law which he made, and appointed himself, together with his brother Caius, and his father-in-law Appius Claudius, commissioners for dividing the lands. He also proposed another Agrarian law, by which the land was still more at his disposal, that the same commissioners should be authorized to determine which was public and which private land. When afterwards it appeared that there was not land sufficient to be divided so as to satisfy the people, whose hopes he had raised to cupidity by the expectations held out to them, he declared that he would propose a law, that all those, who by the law of Sempronius were entitled to such grant, should be paid in money out of the bequest of king Attalus. But Attalus, king of Pergamus, son of Eumenes, had made the Romans his heirs. The senate was roused to indignation at such repeated ill-treatment; and chiefly Publius Mucius, the consul, who, having delivered a severe invective against Gracchus in the senate, was seized by him, dragged before the people, and accused; nevertheless he continued to inveigh against him from the rostrum. Gracchus, endeavouring to procure his re-election as tribune, was slain in the Capitol, by the chief nobles, by the advice of Publius Cornelius Nasica, after having been beaten first with the fragments of the seats, and was thrown, without the rites of sepulture, into the river, together with some others who fell in the tumult. Various engagements, with various success, against the slaves in Sicily are recorded.
BOOK LIX.
The Numantines, reduced to the extremity of distress by famine, put themselves to death. Scipio having taken the city, destroys it and triumphs in the fourteenth year after the destruction of Carthage, [y. r. 620. b. c. 132.] The consul, Publius Rupilius, puts an end to the war with the slaves in Sicily. Aristonicus, the son of king Eumenes, invades and seizes Asia; which having been bequeathed to the Roman people by Attalus, ought to be free. The consul, Publius Licinius Crassus, who was also chief priest, marches against him out of Italy, (which never was done before,) engages with him in battle, is beaten and slain. Marcus Peperna, the consul, subdued Aristonicus. Quintus Metellus and Quintus Pomponius, the first plebeians who were ever both at one time elected censors, closed the lustrum; the number of citizens amounted to three hundred and thirteen thousand eight hundred and twenty-three, besides orphans and widows, [y. r. 621. b. c. 131.] Quintus Metellus gives his opinion, that every man should be compelled to marry, in order to increase the population of the state. His speech upon the occasion, is still extant, and so exactly does it apply to the present times, that Augustus Cæsar read it in the senate upon occasion of his proposing to release marriage from all restraints on account of the difference of rank. Caius Atinius Labeo, tribune of the people, orders the censor, Quintus Metellus, to be thrown from the Tarpeian rock for striking him out of the list of the senate; but the other tribunes interfere and protect him. [y. r. 622. b. c. 130.] Quintus Carbo, the plebeian tribune, proposes a law that the people might have the power of re-electing the same tribune as often as they please: Publius Africanus argues against the proposition in a speech of great energy, in which he asserts that Tiberius Gracchus was justly put to death. Gracchus supports the proposed law; but Scipio prevails. War was waged between Antiochus, king of Syria, and Phraates, king of Parthia, nor does the record show that greater tranquillity existed in Egypt. Ptolemy, surnamed Evergetes, being detested on account of his cruelty by his subjects, who set his palace on fire, escaped to Cyprus, and when the people conferred the kingdom upon his sister Cleopatra, whom he had divorced, after having first ravished and then married her daughter; he being enraged, murders the son he had by her at Cyprus, and sent his head and limbs to the mother, [y. r. 623. b. c. 129.] Seditions were excited by Fulvius Flaccus, Caius Gracchus, and Caius Carbo, appointed to carry into execution the Agrarian law: these were opposed by Publius Scipio Africanus, who going home at night in perfect health, was found dead in his chamber the next morning. His wife, Sempronia, sister of the Gracchuses, with whom Scipio was at enmity, was strongly suspected of having given him poison: no inquiry however was made into the matter. Upon his death the popular seditions blaze out with great fury. Caius Sempronius, the consul, fought the Iapidæ, at first unsuccessfully, but soon repairs all his losses by a signal victory, gained by the valour of Junius Brutus, the conqueror of Lusitania.
BOOK LX.
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.
BOOK LXI.
Caius Sextius, the proconsul, [y. r. 630. b. c. 122,] having subdued the nation of the Salyans, founds a colony, which he named Aquæ Sextiæ, after his own name, and on account of the abundance of water which he found there, flowing both from hot and cold springs, [y. r. 631. b. c. 121.] Cneius Domitius, the proconsul, fought the Allobrogians with success at the town of Vindalium. The cause of this war was their receiving, and furnishing with all the aid in their power, Teutomalius, the king of the Salyans, who had fled to them, and their ravaging the lands of the Æduans, who were in alliance with the people of Rome. [y. r. 632. b. c. 120.] Caius Gracchus, upon the expiration of his seditious tribunate, seized upon the Aventine mount with a considerable number of armed followers; Lucius Opimius, by a decree of the senate, armed the people, drove him from it, and put him to death, together with Fulvius Flaccus, a man of consular rank, a participator of the same wild project. Quintus Fabius Maximus, the consul, nephew of Paullus, gained a battle against the Allobrogians and Bituitus, king of the Arvernians, in which one thousand one hundred and twenty of the army of Bituitus were slain, [y. r. 633. b. c. 119.] The king having come to Rome to make satisfaction to the senate, was sent prisoner to Alba, there to be kept in custody, as it was not considered safe to send him back to Gaul. A decree was also passed, that his son, Congentiatus, should be taken and sent to Rome. The Allobrogians were admitted to a capitulation. Lucius Opimius, being brought to trial before the people for committing to prison some citizens who had not been condemned, was acquitted.