one of those splendid bursts of oratory, with which he had already electrified the people, remains to show over what he was for ever brooding.  ‘They slew him,’ he cried, ’these scoundrels slew Tiberius, my noble brother!  Ah, they are all of one pattern.’  He said this in advocating the Lex Papiria, which proposed to make the re-election of a tribune legal.  But Scipio opposed the law, and it was defeated then, to be carried, however, a few years later.  Again, in the year of his quaestorship, he spoke against the law of M. Junius Pennus, which aimed at expelling all Peregrini from Rome.  They were the very men by whose help Tiberius had carried his agrarian law, and when Caius spoke for them he was clearly treading in his brother’s steps.  At a later time he declared that he dreamt Tiberius came to him and said, ’Why do you hesitate?  You cannot escape your doom and mine—­to live for the people and die for them.’  Such a story would be effective in a speech, and particularly effective when told to a superstitious audience; but his day-dreams we may be sure were the cause and not the consequence of his visions of the night.  For there can be no doubt that the younger brother had already one purpose and one only—­to avenge the death of Tiberius and carry out his designs.

Such omens as Roman credulity fastened on when the political air was heavy with coming storm abounded now.  With grave irony the historian records:  ’Besides showers of oil and milk in the neighbourhood of Veii, a fact of which some people may doubt, an owl, it is said, was seen on the Capitol, which may have been true.’  Fulvius Flaccus, the friend of Gracchus, made the first move. [Sidenote:  Proposition of Fulvius Flaccus.  Its significance.] In order to buy off the opposition of the Socii to the agrarian law, he proposed to give them the franchise, just as Licinius, when he had offered the poor plebeians a material boon, offered the rich ones a political one, so as to secure the united support of the whole body.  The proposal was significant, and it was made at a critical time.  The poor Italians were chafing, no doubt, at the suspension of the agrarian law.  The rich were indignant at the carrying of the law of Pennus.  Other and deeper causes of irritation have been mentioned above.  In the year of the proposal of Flaccus, and very likely in consequence of its rejection, Fregellae—­a Latin colony—­revolted. [Sidenote:  Revolt and punishment of Fregellae.] The revolt was punished with the ferocity of panic.  The town was destroyed; a Roman colony, Fabrateria, was planted near its site; and for the moment Italian discontent was awed into sullen silence.  No wonder the Senate was panic-stricken.  Here was a real omen, not conjured up by superstition, that one of those towns, which through Rome’s darkest fortunes in the second Punic War had remained faithful to her, should single-handed and in time of peace raise the standard of rebellion.  Was Fregellae indeed single-handed?  The Senate suspected not,