his own colleagues in the tribuneship, he had gained his end. Three commissioners were appointed to superintend the execution of the law—Tiberius himself, his father-in-law Appius Claudius, and his younger brother Caius. Loud and deep were the vows of vengeance on the part of the senators; and Tiberius saw that his only chance of life lay in being re-*elected to the tribuneship, the dignity of which was an inviolable protection. To prevent this, the senatorial party mustered all their strength; and a tumult ensuing on one of the days of election, Tiberius, along with about 300 of his followers, was killed.
For about ten years the excitement caused by the law of Gracchus continued, Fulvius Flaccus and Papirius Carbo acting as his successors in the popular interest, and carrying on the struggle against the nobles, who raised up obstacles to the execution of the law. But in the year B. C. 123, Caius Gracchus, who now felt himself old enough to assume the career which his brother had left him as an inheritance, claimed and obtained the tribuneship. Caius was a man of more vehement character and more comprehensive views than his brother, and the schemes which he proposed embraced a great variety of points, besides a reënactment of his brother's agrarian law. In fact, a reformer by reputation and education, he made it his business to find out abuses, and either declaim against them or propose remedies for them. Perhaps the most objectionable of his measures was a law enacting a monthly distribution of corn among the city population at a nominal price—a poor-law, for such it may be called, which had the effect of attracting all the paupers of Italy to Rome. A more valuable measure was his transference of the judicial power from the senators, who had hitherto held it, and who had been guilty of great corruption in the exercise of it, to the equites, or wealthy capitalists, intermediate between the senators and the poorer classes of the community. He also proposed and carried the establishment or various colonies in different parts of the empire, which afforded room for enterprise, thus relieving Rome of part of its overgrown population. More fortunate so far than his brother, he held the tribuneship for two years, and thus had time for more extensive action. Deserted, however, by the people at the end of the second year, in consequence of the policy of his opponents, who adopted the plan of outbidding him for popular favor, he lost his office. The senators, having him at their mercy, spared no means of revenge; and Gracchus, and his friend Fulvius Flaccus, having recourse to the armed assistance of their supporters to preserve their lives when they appeared in public, this was construed into a design of sedition. The consul was empowered to resort to force against them; a terrible fray occurred in one of the quarters of the town, 3000, it is said, being slain; and Gracchus was killed while trying to escape into the country (B. C. 121). He was then only in the thirty-third year of his age.
The aristocracy thus triumphed for the time, and the recent measures of reform were suffered to fall into disuse; but certain portions of the policy of the two brothers had taken full effect, and the agitation which they had originated was not lulled for many years. The seeds of much that afterwards appeared in storm and bloodshed, were sown during these movements of B. C. 133-121; and as long as the world takes an interest in Roman history, or respects disinterested political courage, it will remember the Gracchi.
