Chapter 5

Caius Gracchus as a candidate for the tribunate (B.C. 124). Early career of Caius Gracchus. First tribunate of Caius Gracchus (B.C. 123). Laws passed or proposed during this tribunate; law protecting the Caput of a Roman citizen. Impeachment of Popillius. Law concerning magistrates who had been deposed by the people. Social reforms. Law providing for the cheapened sale of corn. Law mitigating the conditions of military service, 208. Agrarian law. Judiciary law. Law permitting a criminal prosecution for corrupt judgments. Law concerning the province of Asia. The new balance of power created by these laws in favour of the Equites. Law about the consular provinces. Colonial schemes of Caius Gracchus. The Rubrian law for the renewal of Carthage. Law for the making of roads. Election of Fannius to the consulship and of Caius Gracchus and Flaccus to the tribunate. Activity of Caius Gracchus during his second tribunate (B.C. 122). The franchise bill. Opposition to the bill. Exclusion of Italians from Rome; threat of the veto, and suspension of the measure. Proposal for a change in the order of voting in the Comitia Centuriata. New policy of the senate; counter-legislation of Drusus. Colonial proposals of Drusus. His measure for the protection of the Latins. The close of Caius Gracchus's second tribunate. His failure to be elected tribune for the third time. Proposal for the repeal of the Rubrian law. The meeting on the Capitol and its consequences (B.C. 121). Declaration of a state of siege. The seizure of the Aventine; defeat of the Gracchans; death of Caius Gracchus and Flaccus. Judicial prosecution of the adherents of Caius Gracchus. Future judgments on the Gracchi. The closing years of Cornelia. Estimate of the character and consequences of the Gracchan reforms.