n,
might still affect even the exiled. But preliminary arrest and
complete execution of the sentence remained in such cases at least
legally possible, and were still sometimes carried into effect even
against persons of rank; for instance, Lucius Hostilius Tubulus,
praetor of 612, who was capitally impeached for a heinous crime,
was refused the privilege of exile, arrested, and executed. On the
other hand the judicial commissions, which originated out of the civil
procedure, probably could not at the outset touch the liberty or
life of the citizen, but at the most could only pronounce sentence
of exile; this, which had hitherto been a mitigation of punishment
accorded to one who was found guilty, now became for the first time a
formal penalty This involuntary exile however, like the voluntary, left
to the person banished his property, so far as it was not exhausted
in satisfying claims for compensation and money-fines. Lastly, in
the matter of debt Gaius Gracchus made no alteration; but very
respectable authorities assert that he held out to those in debt the
hope of a diminution or remission of claims--which, if it is correct,
must likewise be reckoned among those radically popular measures.

Elevation of the Equestrian Order

While Gracchus thus leaned on the support of the multitude, which
partly expected, partly received from him a material improvement
of its position, he laboured with equal energy at the ruin of the
aristocracy. Perceiving clearly how insecure was the rule of the
head of the state built merely on the proletariate, he applied himself
above all to split the aristocracy and to draw a part of it over to
his interests. The elements of such a rupture were already in
existence. The aristocracy of the rich, which had risen as one man
against Tiberius Gracchus, consisted in fact of two essentially
dissimilar bodies, which may be in some measure compared to the
peerage and the city aristocracy of England. The one embraced the
practically closed circle of the governing senatorial families who
kept aloof from direct speculation and invested their immense capital
partly in landed property, partly as sleeping partners in the great
associations. The core of the second class was composed of the
speculators, who, as managers of these companies, or on their own
account, conducted the large mercantile and pecuniary transactions
throughout the range of the Roman hegemony. We have already shown(16)
how the