Sometimes, however, if a gladiator, who had been knocked out, had shown himself particularly brave and a good fighter or a good sport, the people seated all around the amphitheater would turn their thumbs up as a sign that his life was to be spared by the other gladiator. So the winning gladiator, before killing his opponent whom he had down, would wait to see what the people wished. If they turned their thumbs down, it meant he was to finish the fight by killing his man.
But although Rome had become such a fine and beautiful and healthy city in which to live, the rich people were getting most of the money that came there from all over the empire. They were getting richer and richer all the time, while the poor people, who got nothing, were getting poorer and poorer all the time. The Romans brought the people whom they conquered in battle to Rome and made them work for them without pay. These were slaves and they did all the work. It is said that there were more than twice as many slaves as Romans—two slaves for every Roman citizen.
Now, Scipio, who had conquered Hannibal in the Punic War, had a daughter named Cornelia Graccha, and she had two sons. They were very fine boys, and Cornelia was naturally very proud of them.
One day a very rich Roman woman was visiting Cornelia and showing off all her rings and necklaces and other ornaments, of which she had a great many and was very proud.
When she had shown off all she had, she asked to see Cornelia’s jewels.
Cornelia called to her two boys, who were playing outside, and when they came in to their mother she put her arms around them and said:
“These are my jewels.”
But boys who are jewels when they are young do not always turn out to be jewels when they grow up. So you may wonder how Cornelia’s jewels tinned out.
When they grew up, the Gracchi, as they were called, saw such great extravagance among the rich and such great misery among the poor that they wanted to do something about it. They saw that the poor had hardly anything to eat and no place to live. This did not seem fair. So they tried to lower the price of food, so that the poor might be able to buy enough to eat. Then they tried to find some way to give the poor at least a small piece of land where they might raise a few vegetables. They were partly successful in bringing this about. But the rich people didn’t like giving up anything to the poor, and they killed one of the Gracchus brothers, and later they killed the other one, also. These were Cornelia’s jewels.