BOOK LX.

Lucius Aurelius subdued the rebellious Sardinians, [Y. R. 624. B. C. 128.] Marcus Fulvius Flaccus, who first subdued the Transalpine Ligurians, was sent to assist the Massilians, against the Salvian Gauls, who were ravaging their country. Lucius Opimius, the prætor, caused the revolted Fregellans to lay down their arms, and destroyed Fregellæ. [Y. R. 625. B. C. 127.] An extraordinary multitude of locusts in Africa, killed and lying dead on the ground, is said to have produced a pestilence, [Y. R. 626. B. C. 126.] The censors closed the lustrum: the number of the citizens was three hundred and ninety thousand seven hundred and thirty-six. [Y. R. 627. B. C. 125.] Caius Gracchus, the plebeian tribune, the brother of Tiberius, even more eloquent than his brother, carried some very dangerous laws; among others, one respecting corn, that the people shall be supplied with the article in the market at the rate of half and a third of an _as_; also an Agrarian law, the same as his brother’s: and a third intended to corrupt the equestrian order, who at that time were subservient in all their opinions to the senate: namely, that six hundred of them should be admitted into the senate: these six hundred equestrians were to be joined to three hundred senators for at that time there were only three hundred senators; that is, in other words, that the equestrian order should have double influence in the senate. His office being continued to him another year, by Agrarian laws which he passed, he caused that many colonies should be led out into Italy, and he himself, having been made triumvir, headed one to the territory of demolished Carthage, [Y. R. 628. B. C. 124.] The successful expeditions of the consul Quintus Metellus against the Balearians, called by the Greeks Gymnesians, because they go naked all the summer, are recorded. They are called Balearians, from their skill in throwing weapons; or, as some will have it, from Baleus, the companion of Hercules, who left him there behind him, when he sailed to Geryon. [Y. R. 629. B. C. 123.] Commotions in Syria, in which Cleopatra murders her husband Demetrius, and also his son Seleucus, for assuming the crown without her consent, upon his father’s death, are also mentioned.