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 than by Mr Froude. In following the chief points of this indictment, it will be convenient to recognise two periods: the first, from the Gracchi to Sulla; the second, from Sulla to the first consulship of Cæsar.

"The Senate," says Mr Froude, "was the permanent Council of State, and was the real administrator of the empire. The senate had the control of the treasury, conducted the public policy, appointed from its own ranks the governors of the provinces. It was patrician in sentiment, but not necessarily patrician in composition. The members of it had virtually been elected for life by the people, and were almost entirely those who had been quæstors, ædiles, prætors, or consuls; and these offices had been open to the plebeians. It was an aristocracy, in theory a real one, but tending to become, as civilisation went forward, an aristocracy of the rich."

This account is substantially correct, though, as we shall see presently, it scarcely brings out with sufficient clearness the character which had belonged to the Senate before it began to degenerate. We proceed to trace, with Mr Froude, the process by which senatorial rule was finally discredited. "Caius Gracchus had a broader intellect than his brother, and a character considerably less noble. The land question, he perceived, was but one of many questions. The true source of the disorders of the Commonwealth was the Senate itself. The administration of the empire was in the hands of men totally unfit to be trusted with it." Accordingly, after reviving the agrarian law, Caius Gracchus transferred the judicial functions of the Senate to the knights. "How bitterly must such a measure have