Page:Great Men and Famous Women Volume 5.djvu/50

 22 WORKMEN AND HEROES acy. and placed the elections more completely in their control. Their military successes had given them so long a tenure of power that they had believed it to be theirs in perpetuity ; and the new sedition, as they called it, threatened at once their privileges and their fortunes. The quarrel assumed the familiar form of a struggle between the rich and the poor, and at such times the mob of voters becomes less easy to corrupt. They go with their order, as the prospect of larger gain makes them indifferent to immediate bribes. It became clear that the ma- jority of the citizens would support Tiberius Gracchus, but the constitutional forms of opposition might still be resorted to. Octavius Caecina, another of the tribunes, had himself large interests in the land question. Ke was the people's magistrate, one of the body appointed especially to defend their rights, but he went over to the Senate, and, using a power which undoubtedly belonged to him, he forbade the vote to be taken. There was no precedent for the removal of either consul, praetor, or tribune, except under circumstances very different from any which could as yet be said to have arisen. The magistrates held office for a year only, and the power of veto had been allowed them expressly to secure time for deliberation and to prevent passionate legislation. But Gracchus was young and enthusiastic. Precedent or no precedent, the citizens were omnipotent. He invited them to declare his colleague deposed. They had warmed to the fight, and complied. A more ex- perienced statesman would have known that established constitutional bulwarks cannot be swept away by a momentary vote. He obtained his Agrarian law. Three commissioners were appointed, himself, his younger brother, and his father-in-law, Appius Claudius, to carry it into effect ; but the very names showed that he had alienated his few supporters in the higher circles, and that a single family was now contending against the united wealth and distinction of Rome. The issue was only too certain. Popular enthusiasm is but a fire of straw. In a year Tiberius Gracchus would be out of office. Other tribunes would be cho- sen more amenable to influence, and his work could then be undone. He evi- dently knew that those who would succeed him could not be relied on to carry on his policy. He had taken one revolutionary step already ; he was driven on to another, and he offered himself illegally to the Comitia for re-election. It was to invite them to abolish the constitution, and to make him virtual sover- eign ; and that a young man of thirty should have contemplated such a position for himself as possible, is of itself a proof of his unfitness for it. . The election day came. The noble lords and gentlemen appeared in the Campus Martius with their retinues of armed servants and clients ; hot-blooded aristocrats, full of disdain for demagogues, and meaning to read a lesson to sedition which it would not easily forget. Votes were given for Gracchus. Had the hustings been left to decide the matter, he would have been chosen ; but as it began to appear how the polling would go, sticks were used and swords ; a riot rose, the unarmed citizens were driven off, Tiberius Gracchus himself and three hundred of his friends were killed, and their bodies were flung into the Tiber. Thus the first sparks of the coming revolution were trampled out. But though