Page:Roman Constitutional History, 753-44 B.C..djvu/182

168 Gaius Sempronius Gracchus. — In the same year, 124, a new democratic leader appeared, in the person of Gaius Gracchus. He had been a member of the agrarian commission from the beginning, had advocated Carbo's proposal to make the tribunes reëligible (p. 166), and had opposed the law of Pennus. During the last two years he had been absent as a quaestor in Sardinia. He now returned without leave, and was accused of having incited the insurrection of Fregellae, but secured an acquittal. Then he threw down the gauntlet to the oligarchy, and was elected tribune for 123.

Gaius Gracchus was still a young man, but he had been deeply influenced by the tragic fate of his brother, and was developed and trained by the experiences of the subsequent nine years. He was one of the greatest orators and one of the few creative statesmen that Rome produced. He exercised a profound influence on the last epoch of the republic, and originated or formulated many of the fundamental principles on which the Roman empire was established.

He could not hope for the coöperation of the senate in carrying his measures of reform, much less in avenging his brother's death. In order to succeed, he would be obliged to make himself independent of the senate, that is, to revolutionize the government. For this reason he did not, like his brother, begin as an advocate of economic reform. He was primarily a revolutionist, to whom economic measures were means rather than ends. The recent law which conditionally allowed the reëlection of tribunes had removed one great obstacle in his way, and might become the cornerstone of a practically new government. He seemed to need only one thing more — popularity with the urban multitude, and of this he had already a fair share because of his relationship to Tiberius and others, his own past work, his lovable nature, and his eloquence.