Page:Plutarch's Lives (Clough, v.4, 1865).djvu/542

 534 CAIUS GRACCHUS. have returned at the end of one year ; and alone of all who went on the expedition, he had carried out a full, and had brought home an empty purse, while others, after drinking up the wine they bad carried out with them, brought back the wine-jars filled again with gold and sil- ver from the war. After this, they brought other accusations and writs against him, for exciting insurrection amongst the allies, and being engaged in the conspiracy that was discovered about Fregella?. But having cleared himself of every sus- picion, and proved his entire innocence, he now at once came forward to ask for the tribuneship; in which, though he was universally opposed by all persons of distinction, yet there came such infinite numbers of people from all parts of Italy to vote for Caius, that lodgings for them could not be supplied in the city ; and the Field being not large enough to contain the assembly, there were numbers who climbed upon the roofs and the tilings of the houses to use their voices in his favor. However, the nobility so far forced the people to their pleasure and disappointed Caius's hope, that he was not returned the first, as was expected, but the fourth tribune. But when he came to the execution of his office, it was seen presently who was really first tribune, as he was a better orator than any of his contemporaries, and the passion with which he still lamented his brother's death, made him the bolder in speaking. He used on all occasions to remind the people of what had happened in that tumult, and laid before them the examples of their ancestors, how they declared war against the Faliscans, only for giving scurril- ous language to one Genucius, a tribune of the people ; able extracts given from Caius's argenti extuli, eas ex provincia speech ; amongst them, the passage inanes retuli ; alii vini amphoras' which Plutarch refers to below, quas plenas tulerunt, eas argento " Itaque, Quirites, quum Eomam plenas domum reportaverunt." profectus sum, zonas quas plenas