Page:Plutarch's Lives (Clough, v.4, 1865).djvu/520

 512 TIBERIUS GRACCHUS. Aoon as he entered into the city, they first offered him food, and made every kind of entreaty that he would sit down and eat something in their company. Afterwards they returned his books, and gave him the liberty to take whatever he wished for in the remaining spoils. He, on the other hand, would accept of nothing but some frank- incense, which he used in his public sacrifices, and, bidding them farewell with every expression of kindness, de- parted. When he returned to Rome, he found the whole trans- action censured and reproached, as a proceeding that was base, and scandalous to the Romans. But the relations and friends of the soldiers, forming a large body among the people, came flocking to Tiberius, whom they ac- knowledged as the preserver of so many citizens, imput- ing to the general all the miscarriages which had hap- pened. Those who cried out against what had been done, urged for imitation the example of their ancestors, who stripped and handed over to the Samnites not only the generals who had consented to the terms of release, but also all the quaestors, for example, and tribunes, who had in any way implicated themselves in the agreement, lay- ing the guilt of perjury and breach of conditions on their heads. But, in this affair, the populace, showing an extra- ordinary kindness and affection for Tiberius, indeed voted that the consul should be stripped and put in irons, and so delivered to the Numantines; but for the sake of Ti- berius, spared all the other officers. It may be probable, also, that Scipio, who at that time was the greatest and most powerful man among the Romans, contributed to save him, though indeed he was also censured for not pro- tecting Mancinus too, and that he did not exert himself to maintain the observance of the articles of peace which had been agreed upon by his kinsman and friend Tiberius. But it may be presumed that the difference between