The agrarian law, however, which had passed, was too evidently just to be openly ignored. The remaining two commissioners continued their work, until, within two years, 40,000 families were settled on tracts of the public land which the patricians were compelled to vacate. But the commissioners became unpopular, for those who received lands were not always satisfied, and those who were obliged to leave them were enraged. The commissioners were suspended, and the law repealed.
The mantle of Tiberius fell on GAIUS GRACCHUS. For a time after his brother's death he retired from politics, and served in the army in Africa and Sardinia, where he was Quaestor. His valor, wisdom, and justice made him justly popular, but caused him to be regarded with suspicion at Rome. In 123 he was elected Tribune, and twice re-elected. He revived his brother's agrarian law, and became at once the avowed enemy of the Senate. As a means of increasing his popularity, he endeavored to admit all the Italians to the privileges of Roman citizenship, and to limit the price of bread.
Gains gained the favor of the Equites (Knights), the commercial class, by carrying through the assembly a law by which all judicial functions were taken from the Senate and intrusted to the Knights. Heretofore all civil and criminal cases of importance had been tried before a jury chosen from the Senate. These juries were often venal and corrupt, and it was a notorious fact that their verdicts could be bought.
The transferring of the juries to the Equites made Gaius for a time very powerful. He caused another law to be passed, to the effect that no Roman citizen should be put to death without legal trial and an appeal to the assembly of the people.
But the plan of Gaius to extend the franchise to all the Italians ruined his popularity. The Roman citizens had no desire to share their rights with the Etruscans and Samnites. Riots again broke out, as ten years before. The aristocracy again armed itself. Gaius with 3,000 of his friends was murdered in 121, and the Senate was once more master of the situation.
However, the results obtained by the Gracchi still remained. Forty thousand peasants had been settled on public land. The jury law was in force. No Roman citizen could be put to death without trial, unless the state was held to be in danger.
Nearly all Roman writers unite in attacking the reputation of the Gracchi; but viewed in the light of to-day their characters were noble, and their virtues too conspicuous to be obscured.
A few years previous to this, the younger Africánus died (129). His remark about the death of Tiberius Gracchus gave dire offence to the popular party, and a few days later he was found dead in his bed, probably "a victim of political assassination."
Africánus was a man of refinement and culture, a warm friend of scholars, a patron of the Greek historian POLYBIUS, and of the poets LUCILIUS and TERENCE. He was opposed to the tendency of his age towards luxury and extravagance. He was an orator, as well as a general. The one blot on his career is the terrible destruction of Carthage, which he possibly might have averted had he shown firm opposition to it.
SCIPIO NASÍCA, who led the mob against Tiberius, was compelled, though Pontifex Maximus, to leave the city, and died an exile in Asia.