Rome and the provinces as the establishment of monarchy could not but bring in its train; the attempt to rebuild Carthage destroyed by Italian rivalry and generally to open the way for Italian emigration towards the provinces, formed the first link in the long chain of that momentous and beneficial course of action.  Right and wrong, fortune and misfortune were so inextricably blended in this singular man and in this marvellous political constellation, that it may well beseem history in this case—­though it beseems her but seldom—­ to reserve her judgment.

The Question As to the Allies

When Gracchus had substantially completed the new constitution projected by him for the state, he applied himself to a second and more difficult work.  The question as to the Italian allies was still undecided.  What were the views of the democratic leaders regarding it, had been rendered sufficiently apparent.(26) They naturally desired the utmost possible extension of the Roman franchise, not merely that they might bring in the domains occupied by the Latins for distribution, but above all that they might strengthen their body of adherents by the enormous mass of the new burgesses, might bring the comitial machine still more fully under their power by widening the body of privileged electors, and generally might abolish a distinction which had now with the fall of the republican constitution lost all serious importance.  But here they encountered resistance from their own party, and especially from that band which otherwise readily gave its sovereign assent to all which it did or did not understand.  For the simple reason that Roman citizenship seemed to these people, so to speak, like a partnership which gave them a claim to share in sundry very tangible profits, direct and indirect, they were not at all disposed to enlarge the number of the partners.  The rejection of the Fulvian law in 629, and the insurrection of the Fregellans arising out of it, were significant indications both of the obstinate perseverance of the fraction of the burgesses that ruled the comitia, and of the impatient urgency of the allies.  Towards the end of his second tribunate (632) Gracchus, probably urged by obligations which he had undertaken towards the allies, ventured on a second attempt.  In concert with Marcus Flaccus—­who, although a consular, had again taken the tribuneship of the people, in order now to carry the law which he had formerly proposed without success—­he made a proposal to grant to the Latins the full franchise, and to the other Italian allies the former rights of the Latins.  But the proposal encountered the united opposition of the senate and the mob of the capital.  The nature of this coalition and its mode of conflict are clearly and distinctly seen from an accidentally preserved fragment of the speech which the consul Gaius Fannius made to the burgesses in opposition to the proposal.  “Do you then think,” said the Optimate, “that,