clung to him, evinced the loveable nature of that noble mind.  The discipline of suffering which he had undergone, and his compulsory reserve during the last nine years, augmented his energy of purpose and action; the indignation repressed within the depths of his breast only glowed there with an intensified fervour against the party which had disorganized his country and murdered his brother.  By virtue of this fearful vehemence of temperament he became the foremost orator that Rome ever had; without it, we should probably have been able to reckon him among the first statesmen of all times.  Among the few remains of his recorded orations several are, even in their present condition, of heart-stirring power;(7) and we can well understand how those who heard or even merely read them were carried away by the impetuous torrent of his words.  Yet, great master as he was of speech, he was himself not unfrequently mastered by anger, so that the utterance of the brilliant speaker became confused or faltering.  It was the true image of his political acting and suffering.  In the nature of Gaius there was no vein, such as his brother had, of that somewhat sentimental but very short-sighted and confused good-nature, which would have desired to change the mind of a political opponent by entreaties and tears; with full assurance he entered on the career of revolution and strove to reach the goal of vengeance.  “To me too,” his mother wrote to him, “nothing seems finer and more glorious than to retaliate on an enemy, so far as it can be done without the country’s ruin.  But if this is not possible, then may our enemies continue and remain what they are, a thousand times rather than that our country should perish.”  Cornelia knew her son; his creed was just the reverse.  Vengeance he would wreak on the wretched government, vengeance at any price, though he himself and even the commonwealth were to be ruined by it—­the presentiment, that fate would overtake him as certainly as his brother, drove him only to make haste like a man mortally wounded who throws himself on the foe.  The mother thought more nobly; but the son—­ with his deeply provoked, passionately excited, thoroughly Italian nature—­has been more lamented than blamed by posterity, and posterity has been right in its judgment.

Alterations on the Constituion by Gaius Gracchus
Distribution of Grain
Change in the Order of Voting

Tiberius Gracchus had come before the burgesses with a single administrative reform.  What Gaius introduced in a series of separate proposals was nothing else than an entirely new constitution; the foundation-stone of which was furnished by the innovation previously carried through, that a tribune of the people should be at liberty to solicit re-election for the following year.(8) While this step enabled the popular chief to acquire a permanent position and one which protected its holder, the next object was to secure for him material power or, in other words, to attach the multitude of