influence induce it to do justice to Italy.  But this conservative advocate of reform was not wily enough tactician for the times in which he lived, or the changes which he meditated.  His attempts to improve on the devices of Saturninus and Gracchus were miserable failures; and the senators who used him, or were influenced by him, shrank from his side when they saw him follow to their logical issue the principles which they had advocated either for selfish objects or only theoretically.

[Sidenote:  Main object of Drusus to aid the Italians.] Whether this is the true view of the character and position of Drusus or not, we may feel sure that he was in earnest in his advocacy of Italian interests, and that this was the main object of his reforms. [Sidenote:  Sops to the mob:  Depreciation of the coinage.  Colonies.  Corn-law.] To silence the mob at Rome, he slightly depreciated the coinage so as to relieve debtors, established some colonies—­perhaps those promised by his father—­and carried some law for distributing cheap grain. [Sidenote:  Sop to the senate and equites.] Senators like Scaurus he courted by handing over the judicia once more to the Senate, while, by admitting 300 equites to the Senate, he hoped to compensate them for the wound which he thus inflicted on their material interests and their pride.  The body thus composed was to try cases of judices accused of taking bribes.  But the Senate scorned and yet feared the threatened invasion by which it would be severed into two antagonistic halves.  The equites left behind were jealous of the equites promoted; and where Drusus hoped to conciliate both classes, he only drew down their united animosity upon himself.  Even in Italy his plans were not unanimously approved.  Occupiers of the public land, who had never yet been disturbed in their occupation—­such as those who held the Campanian domain land—­were alarmed by this plan of colonisation, which not only called in question once more their right of tenure, but even appropriated their land.  But though the large land-owners were adverse to him, the great mass of the Italians was on his side; and it was by their help that he carried the first three of his laws, which he shrewdly included in one measure.  Thus those who wanted land or grain were constrained to vote for the changes in the judicia also.  But, as there was a law expressly forbidding this admixture of different measures in one bill, he left an opening for his opponents of which they soon took advantage. [Sidenote:  Philippus opposes Drusus.] Chief of these opponents was the consul Philippus.  When the Italians crowded into Rome to support Drusus, which they would do by overawing voters at the ballot-boxes, by recording fictitious votes, and by escorting Drusus about, so as to lend him the support which an apparent majority always confers, Philippus came forward as the champion of the opposite side.  He seems to have been a turncoat, with a fluent tongue and few principles.