Chapter 42

Thus when Tiberius and Caius Gracchus, whose forefathers had done much to increase the power of the state in the Punic and other wars, began to vindicate the liberty of the people, and to expose the misconduct of the few, the nobility, conscious of guilt, and seized with alarm, endeavored, sometimes by means of the allies and Latins, and sometimes by means of the equestrian order, whom the hope of coalition with the patricians had detached from the people, to put a stop to the proceedings of the Gracchi; and first they killed Tiberius, and a few years after Caius, who pursued the same measures as his brother, the one when he was tribune, and the other when he was one of a triumvirate for settling colonies; and with them they cut off Marcus Fulvius Flaccus. In the Gracchi, indeed, it must be allowed that, from their ardor for victory, there was not sufficient prudence. But to a reasonable man it is more agreeable to submit to injustice than to triumph over it by improper means. The nobility, however, using their victory with wanton extravagance, exterminated numbers of men by the sword or by exile, yet rather increased, for the time to come, the dread with which they were regarded, than their real power. Such proceedings have often ruined powerful states; for of two parties, each strives to suppress the other by any means whatever, and take vengeance with undue severity on the vanquished.

But were I to attempt to treat of the animosities of parties, and of the morals of the state, with minuteness of detail, and suitably to the vastness of the subject, time would fail me sooner than matter. I therefore return to my subject.