Page:A General Sketch of Political History from the Earlist Times.djvu/111

 THE EXPANSION OF ROMAN DOMINION 99 was the retention of the Tribunate for successive years. His first measures were intended to secure popularity and personal support for himself against the Senate. The extension of the empire had brought into being a new non-Senatorial moneyed class. A very necessary law had been made pre- The venting senators and their families from taking up Equites. state contracts. They had put their wealth chiefly into the land, but it followed that the commercial wealth had accumu- lated in the pockets of a different class. Gracchus reconstituted what were known as the Equestrian groups or Knights of the Comitia Centuriata, and practically created a new Equestrian Order confined to men of wealth who were not senators; and to this order were given important judicial functions hitherto held and employed greatly to their own advantage by the Senate. To secure the votes of the mob, a law was passed by which the state supplied corn corn-doles to Roman citizens at less than its market price, and Colonies. The popularity of his first measures secured the re-election of Gracchus to the Tribunate j and he proceeded to put forward the unpopular but statesmanlike proposal for the enfranchise- ment of the Italians, and a further scheme for planting colonies of Roman citizens in the provinces. The Senatorial party made their own bid for popularity through Drusus, a tribune whose appointment they had pro- cured. The colonies proposed by Gracchus were to be limited to citizens of established character, who were to pay a rent to the state. Drusus proposed to plant in Italy a greater number of larger colonies where the lands were to be held rent free, without inquiring into the character of the colonist. p a u f Gracchus lost his popularity, failed to win the Gracchus, 121. Tribunate a third time, and only escaped murder at the hands of the Optimates, as the Senatorial party called themselves, by seeking death at the hands of a faithful slave, who then slew himself upon his master's corpse. During these years the Romans had established their dominion in the south-eastern region of Gaul or France, 4. Marius and in the years following there was a prolonged and Sulla, war with Jugurtha, the King of Numidia. His conquest was