Page:Roman Constitutional History, 753-44 B.C..djvu/178

164 violation of the constitution, and, together with the doctrine of the absolute sovereignty of the people, introduced the revolutionary epoch. The claim that the people had the right to decide the fate of a province was simply an application of the principle. But the sovereignty of assemblies of degenerate and corrupt men incapable of independent action, or even of honestly and intelligently supporting the right leaders and measures, meant the sovereignty of the demagogue and the establishment of tyranny. In so far the nobles were right, when they asserted that Gracchus wished to seize the crown. But it was they who, by their misgovernment, had made the revolution possible; it was they who, by their inflexible opposition, had transformed an honest and patriotic, but impatient and passionate, advocate of reform into a revolutionist; and it was they who, by infamous butchery and judicial persecution, confirmed the civil discord and made it permanent.

Economic Results. — Tiberius Gracchus had perished, but the senate did not venture to annul his agrarian law. Mucianus was elected to fill his place on the commission, but preferred to conduct an Asiatic campaign. Marcus Fulvius Flaccus and Gaius Papirius Carbo succeeded him and Claudius, who was dead. Together with Gaius Gracchus they prosecuted the work of defining, resuming, and distributing the public domain with zeal, energy, and even recklessness. The number of farms was increased everywhere. While the census of 136 gave the number of about three hundred and seventeen thousand citizens capable of bearing arms (p. 148), the number in 125 was about three hundred and ninety-five thousand, an increase of seventy-eight thousand, which was probably due to the work of the commission. In other words, about seventy-eight thousand poor citizens had within ten years received land enough to be assigned to the Servian classes and thus appear in the