Plutarch's Lives, Volume 4 (of 4)

by Plutarch

XI. In Libya, as to the foundation of Carthage,[105] which Caius named Junonia, which is the same as Heraea, it is said there were many supernatural hindrances. For the first standard was seized and broken by a violent gust of wind, though the standard-bearer stuck to it vigorously; and the victims which were lying on the altars were dispersed by a tempest, and scattered beyond the stakes which marked the limits of the city, and the stakes were torn up by the wolves and carried a long way off. However Caius, after settling and arranging everything in seventy days, returned to Rome upon hearing that Fulvius was hard pressed by Drusus, and that affairs required his presence. Lucius Opimius, a man who belonged to the faction of the oligarchs,[106] and had great influence in the senate, failed on a former occasion when he was a candidate for the consulship, at the time when Caius brought forward Fannius and canvassed against Opimius; but now, being supported by a powerful party, it was expected that Opimius would be elected consul and would put down Caius, whose influence was already in some degree on the wane, and the people also were tired of such measures as his, for there were many who sought their favour, and the senate easily gave way.

XII. On his return from Libya, Caius removed from the Palatium to the neighbourhood of the Forum, as being a more popular place of residence, for it happened that most of the lowest classes of the poor lived there; he next promulgated the rest of his measures, intending to take the vote of the people upon them. As crowds were collecting from all parts to support Caius, the senate prevailed on the consul Fannius to drive out of the city all who were not Romans. Accordingly a strange and unusual proclamation was made, to the effect that none of the allies or friends of the Roman state should appear in Rome during those days; on which Caius published a counter edict, in which he criminated the consul and promised his support to the allies if they remained in Rome. But he did not keep his promise; for though he saw one of them, who was his own friend and intimate, dragged off by the officers of Fannius, he passed by without helping him, whether it was that he feared to put to the test his power which was now on the decline, or that he did not choose, as he said, to give his enemies the opportunity which they were seeking of coming to a collision and a struggle. It also chanced that he had incurred the ill-will of his fellow-colleagues, in the following manner:—The people were going to see an exhibition of gladiators in the Forum, and most of the magistrates had constructed seats round the place, with the intention of letting them for hire. But Caius urged them to remove the seats, that the poor might be able to see the show without paying. As no one took any notice of what he said, he waited till the night before the show, when he went with the workmen whom he had under him, and removed the seats, and at daybreak he pointed out to the people that the place was clear; for which the many considered him a man, but he offended his colleagues, who viewed him as an audacious and violent person. Owing to this circumstance, it is supposed, he lost his third tribunate, though he had most votes, for it is said that his colleagues acted illegally and fraudulently in the proclamation and return. This, however, was disputed. Caius did not bear his failure well: and to his enemies, who were exulting over him, he is said to have observed, with more arrogance than was befitting, that their laugh was a sardonic laugh,[107] for they knew not what a darkness his political measures had spread all around them.

XIII. After effecting the election of Opimius to the consulship, the enemies of Caius began to repeal many of his laws and to disturb the settlement of Carthage, for the purpose of irritating Caius, in order that he might give them some cause of quarrel, and so be got rid of. He endured this for some time, but his friends, and especially Fulvius, beginning to urge him on, he again attempted to combine his partisans against the consul. On this occasion it is said that his mother also helped him, by hiring men from remote parts and sending them to Rome in the disguise of reapers, for it is supposed that these matters are obscurely alluded to in her letters[108] to her son. Others, on the contrary, say that this was done quite contrary to the wishes of Cornelia. On the day on which the party of Opimius intended to repeal the laws of Caius, the Capitol had been occupied by the opposite faction early in the morning. The consul had offered the sacrifices, and one of his officers, named Quintus Antyllius,[109] was carrying the viscera to another part, when he said to the partisans of Fulvius, “Make way for honest men, you rascals.” Some say that as he uttered these words he also held out his bare arm with insulting gestures. However this may be, Antyllius was killed on the spot, being pierced with large styles[110] said to have been made expressly for the purpose. The people were greatly disturbed at the murder, but it produced exactly opposite effects on the leaders of the two parties. Caius was deeply grieved at what had happened, and abused his party for having given a handle to their enemies, who had long been looking for it; but Opimius, as if he had got the opportunity which he wanted, was highly elated, and urged the people to avenge the murder.

XIV. A torrent of rain happened to fall just then, and the meeting was dissolved. Early on the following day Opimius summoned the senate to transact business. In the mean time the naked body of Antyllius was placed on a bier, and, according to arrangement, carried through the Forum past the senate-house with loud cries and lamentations. Opimius, though he knew what was going on, pretended to be surprised at the noise, and the senators went out to see what was the matter. When the bier had been set down in the midst of the crowd, the senators began to express their indignation at so horrible and monstrous a crime; but this only moved the people to hate and execrate the oligarchs, who, after murdering Tiberius Gracchus in the Capitol, a tribune, had treated his body with insult; while Antyllius, a mere servant, who perhaps had not deserved his fate, yet was mainly to blame for what happened, was laid out in the Forum, and surrounded by the Roman senate lamenting and assisting at the funeral of a hireling; and all this merely to accomplish the ruin of the only remaining guardian of the people’s liberties. On returning to the senate-house, the senators passed a decree[111] by which the consul Opimius was directed to save the state in such way as he could, and to put down the tyrants. Opimius gave notice to the senators to arm, and each eques was commanded to bring in the morning two armed slaves. On the other side, Fulvius also made preparation and got together a rabble; but Caius as he left the Forum stood opposite his father’s statue, and looking at it for some time without speaking, at last burst into tears, and fetching a deep sigh, walked away. The sight of this moved many of the spectators to compassion, and blaming themselves for deserting the man and betraying him, they came to the house of Caius and passed the night at his door; but not in the same manner as those who watched about the house of Fulvius, for they spent the night in tumult and shouting, drinking, and bragging what they would do. Fulvius himself, who was the first to get drunk, spoke and acted in a way quite unseemly for a man of his age. The followers of Caius, viewing the state of affairs as a public calamity, kept quiet, thinking of the future, and they passed the night watching and sleeping in turns.

XV. At daybreak Fulvius was with difficulty roused from his drunken sleep, and his partisans, arming themselves with the warlike spoils in his house, which he had taken in his victory over the Gauls during his consulship, with loud threats and shouts went to seize the Aventine Hill.[112] Caius would not arm, but went out in his toga just as if he was proceeding to the Forum, with only a short dagger at his side. As he was going out at the door, his wife met him, and throwing one arm round him, while she held in the other their little child, said, “Caius, not as in time past do I take my leave of you going to the Rostra as tribune and as legislator, nor yet going to a glorious war, where, if you died in the service of your country, you would still leave me an honoured grief; but you are going to expose yourself to the murderers of Tiberius: ’tis right indeed to go unarmed, and to suffer rather than do wrong, but you will perish without benefiting the state. The worst has now prevailed; force and the sword determine all controversies. If your brother had died at Numantia, his body would have been restored to us on the usual terms of war; but now perchance I too shall have to supplicate some river or the sea to render up to me your corpse from its keeping. What faith can we put in the laws or in the deities since the murder of Tiberius?” While Licinia was thus giving vent to sorrow, Gracchus gently freed himself from his wife’s embrace, and went off in silence with his friends. Licinia, as she attempted to lay hold of his dress, fell down on the floor, and lay there some time speechless, until her slaves took her up fainting, and carried her to her brother Crassus.

XVI. When they were all assembled, Fulvius, at the request of Caius, sent his younger son with a caduceus[113] to the Forum. He was a most beautiful youth, and with great decorum and modesty, and with tears in his eyes he addressed to the consul and the senate the message of conciliation. The majority who were present were not disinclined to come to terms; but Opimius replied, that Fulvius and Gracchus must not attempt to bring the senate to an accommodation through the medium of a messenger; they must consider themselves as citizens who had to account for their conduct, and come down and surrender, and then beg for mercy; he further told the youth that these were the terms on which he must come a second time, or not at all. Now Caius, it is said, wished to go and clear himself before the senate, but as no one else assented, Fulvius again sent his son to address the senate on their behalf in the same terms as before. But Opimius, who was eager to come to blows, forthwith ordered the youth to be seized and put in prison, and advanced against the party of Fulvius with many legionary soldiers and Cretan bowmen[114] who mainly contributed to put them into confusion by discharging their arrows and wounding them. The partisans of Fulvius being put to flight, he made his escape into a bath that was not used where he was soon discovered and put to death with his elder son. Caius was not observed to take any part in the contest, but greatly troubled at what was taking place, he retired to the temple of Diana, and was going to kill himself there, but was prevented by his faithful friends Pomponius and Licinius, who took the sword away and induced him to fly. It is said that he went down on his knees in the temple, and stretching out his hands to the statue of the goddess, prayed that the Roman people, for their ingratitude and treachery to him, might always be slaves; for the greater part of them had openly gone over to the other side upon an amnesty[115] being proclaimed.

XVII. In his flight Caius was followed by his enemies, who were near overtaking him at the wooden bridge,[116] but his two friends, bidding him make his escape, opposed the pursuers and allowed no man to pass the head of the bridge till they were killed. Caius was accompanied by a single slave, named Philocrates,[117] and though all the spectators urged him to fly, just as if they were shouting at a race, yet no one, though he prayed for it, would come to his aid or lend him a horse: for the pursuers were close upon him. He just escaped into a sacred grove of the Furies,[118] and there he fell by the hand of Philocrates, who killed himself on the body of his master. Some say both of them were taken alive by their enemies, and that the slave embraced his master so closely, that Caius could not be struck until the slave had been dispatched first, and with many blows. It is said that a man cut off the head of Caius and was carrying it away, but it was taken from him by a friend of Opimius named Septimuleius; for proclamation had been made at the beginning of the contest, that those who brought the heads of Caius and Fulvius should have their weight in gold. The head of Caius was brought to Opimius by Septimuleius stuck on a spear, and it weighed seventeen pounds and two-thirds in the scales. Septimuleius was a scoundrel and a knave[119] here also, for he had taken out the brain and dropped melted lead in its place. Those who brought the head of Fulvius got nothing, for they belonged to the lower class. The bodies of Caius and Fulvius and their partisans were thrown into the river, the number of dead being three thousand: their property was sold and the produce paid into the treasury. They also forbade the women to lament for their relatives, and Licinia was deprived of her marriage portion. But their conduct was most cruel to the younger son of Fulvius, who had neither raised up his hand against them nor been among the combatants; for he was seized before the battle, when he came to treat of terms, and was put to death after the battle. But what most of all vexed the people was the circumstance of Opimius erecting a temple to Concord, which was viewed as an evidence of his insolence and arrogance, and as a kind of triumph for the slaughter of so many citizens. Accordingly by night some person wrote under the inscription on the temple the following line:—

The work of Discord[120] makes the temple of Concord.

XVIII. This Opimius,[121] the first man that ever exercised the dictatorial power in the office of consul, and who had condemned without trial three thousand citizens, and among them Caius Gracchus and Fulvius Flaccus[122]—Flaccus, a consular, who had enjoyed a triumph; Gracchus, the first man of his age in character and reputation—this Opimius did not keep himself free from corruption. Being sent as a commissioner to Jugurtha, the Numidian, he was bribed by him, and being convicted of most shameful corruption, he spent the last years of his life in infamy, hated and insulted by the people, who, though humbled and depressed for the time, soon showed how much they desired and regretted the Gracchi. For they had statues of the two brothers made and set up in public places, and the spots on which they fell were declared sacred ground, to which people brought all the first fruits of the seasons, and many persons daily offered sacrifices there and worshipped, just as at the temples of the gods.