The Historians' History of the World 05

“Everywhere Rome was failing in her duties as mistress of the civilised world. Her own internal degeneracy was faithfully reflected in the abnegation of her imperial duties. When in any country the small farmer class is being squeezed off the land; when its labourers are slaves or serfs; when huge tracts are kept waste to minister to pleasure; when the shibboleth of art is on every man’s lips, but ideas of true beauty in very few men’s souls; when the business sharper is the greatest man in the city, and lords it even in the law courts; when class magistrates, bidding for high office, deal out justice according to the rank of the criminal; when exchanges are turned into great gambling-houses, and senators and men of title are the chief gamblers; when, in short, ‘corruption is universal, when there is increasing audacity, increasing greed, increasing fraud, increasing impurity, and these are fed by increasing indulgence and ostentation; when a considerable number of trials in the courts of law bring out the fact that the country in general is now regarded as a prey, upon which any number of vultures, scenting it from afar, may safely light and securely gorge themselves; when the foul tribe is amply replenished by its congeners at home, and foreign invaders find any number of men, bearing good names, ready to assist them in robberies far more cruel and sweeping than those of the footpad or burglar’—when such is the tone of society, and such the idols before which it bends, a nation must be fast going down hill.

“A more repulsive picture can hardly be imagined. A mob, a moneyed class, and an aristocracy almost equally worthless, hating each other, and hated by the rest of the world; Italians bitterly jealous of Romans, and only in better plight than the provinces beyond the sea; more miserable than either, swarms of slaves beginning to brood revenge as a solace to their sufferings; the land going out of cultivation; native industry swamped by slave-grown imports; the population decreasing; the army degenerating; wars waged as a speculation, but only against the weak; provinces subjected to organised pillage; in the metropolis childish superstition, wholesale luxury, and monstrous vice. The hour for reform had surely come. Who was to be the man?”c

Ti. Sempronius Gracchus was son of one of the few Romans in whom public spirit prevailed over the spirit of party. Though personally hostile to the great Scipio, we saw him interfere between him and his foes. After the death of Africanus, the chiefs of the party offered him the hand of Cornelia, the only surviving daughter of the hero; and from this marriage twelve sons and one daughter were born in rapid succession. The eldest, Tiberius, saw the light about 166 B.C., but the father died before his eldest son reached man’s estate, and Cornelia was left a widow with her children. The daughter lived; but of all the twelve sons only two grew up—Tiberius, and Caius who was nine years younger. To the education of these precious relics Cornelia devoted all the energies of her masculine mind. She even refused an offer to share the throne of the king of Egypt. Her dearest task was to watch the opening capacities of her boys. Such was her hope of their greatness that she used to say she would be known not as the daughter of Scipio, but as the mother of the Gracchi.

According to the fashion of the day, Greek teachers were called in to educate the boys. Blossius of Cumæ, and Diophanes a Mytilenean exile, are mentioned as the instructors, and in later life as the friends, of Tiberius. Scarcely had Tiberius assumed the garb of manhood when he was elected into the college of augurs. At the banquet given to celebrate his installation, App. Claudius, the chief of the senate, offered him his daughter’s hand in marriage.

When the proud senator returned home, he told his wife that he had that day betrothed their daughter. “Ah!” she cried, “she is too young; it had been well to wait a while—unless, indeed, young Gracchus is the man.” Soon after his marriage he accompanied Scipio to Carthage, where he was the first to scale the walls.

The personal importance of Gracchus was strengthened by the marriage of Scipio with his only sister. But this marriage proved unhappy. Sempronia had no charms of person, and her temper was not good; Scipio’s austere manners were little pleasing to a bride; nor were children born to form a bond of union between them.

[137-133 B.C.]