passed by the senators came out and hypocritically expressed their anger at the deed.  Then, going indoors, they authorised the consul, by the usual formula, to resort to arms.  He summoned the senators and equites to arm, and each eques was to bring two armed slaves.  The equites owed much to Gracchus, but they basely deserted him now.  Fulvius, on his side, armed and prepared for a struggle.  All the night the friends of Caius guarded his door, watching and sleeping by turns. [Sidenote:  Fighting in Rome.] The house of Fulvius was also surrounded by men, who drank and bragged of what they would do on the morrow, and Fulvius is said to have set them the example.  At daybreak he and his men, to whom he distributed the arms which he had when consul taken from the Gauls, rushed shouting up to the Aventine and seized it.  Caius said good-bye to his wife and little child, and followed, in his toga, and unarmed.  He knew he was going to his death, but

  For his country felt alone,
  And prized her blood beyond his own.

One effort he made to avert the struggle.  He induced Fulvius to send his young son to the Senate to ask for terms.  The messenger returned with the Senate’s reply that they must lay down their arms, and the two leaders must come and answer for their acts.  Caius was ready to go.  But Fulvius was too deeply committed, and sent his son back again, upon which Opimius seized him, and at once marched to the Aventine.  There was a fight, in which Fulvius was beaten, and with another son fled and hid himself in a bath or workshop.  His pursuers threatened to burn all that quarter if he was not given up; so the man who had admitted him told another man to betray him, and father and son were slain.

[Sidenote:  Murder of Caius.] Meanwhile Caius, who had neither armed nor fought, was about to kill himself in the temple of Diana, when his two friends implored him to try and save himself for happier times.  Then it is said he invoked a curse on the people for their ingratitude, and fled across the Tiber.  He was nearly overtaken; but his two staunch friends, Pomponius and Laetorius, gave their lives for their leader—­Pomponius at the Porta Trigemina below the Aventine, Laetorius in guarding the bridge which was the scene of the feat of Horatius Cocles.  As Caius passed people cheered him on, as if it was a race in the games.  He called for help, but no one helped him—­for a horse, but there was none at hand.  One slave still kept up with him, named Philocrates or Euporus.  Hard pressed by their pursuers the two entered the grove of Furina, and there the slave first slew Caius and then himself.  A wretch named Septimuleius cut off the head of Gracchus; for a proclamation had been made that whosoever brought the heads of the two leaders should receive their weight in gold.  Septimuleius, it is said, took out the brains and filled the cavity with lead; but if he cheated Opimius, Opimius in his turn cheated those