n.

This spectacle was a sore one to Tiberius, in whose mind the wise
teachings of his mother had sunk deep. Here were great spaces of fertile
land lying untilled, broad parks for the ostentation of their proud
possessors, while thousands of Romans languished in poverty, and Rome
had begun to depend for food largely upon distant realms.

There was a law, more than two hundred years old, which forbade any man
from holding such large tracts of land. Tiberius thought that this law
should be enforced. On his return to Rome his indignant eloquence soon
roused trouble in that city of rich and poor.

"The wild beasts of the waste have their caves and dens," he said; "but
you, the people of Rome, who have fought and bled for its growth and
glory, have nothing left you but the air and the sunlight. There are far
too many Romans," he continued, "who have no family altar nor ancestral
tomb. They have fought well for Rome, and are falsely called the masters
of the world; but the results of their fighting can only be seen in the
luxury of the great, while not one of them has a clod of dirt to call
his own."

Cornelia urged her son to do some work to ennoble his name and benefit
Rome.

"I am called the 'daughter of Scipio,'" she said. "I wish to be known as
'the mother of the Gracchi.'"

It was not personal glory, but the good of Rome, that the young reformer
sought. He presented himself for the office of tribune, and was elected
by the people, who looked upon him as their friend and advocate. And at
his appeal they crowded from all quarters into the city to vote for the
re-establishment of the Licinian laws,--those forbidding the rich to
hold great estates.

These laws were re-enacted, and those lands which the aristocrats had
occupied by fraud or force were taken from them by a commission and
returned to the state.

All this stirred the proud land-holders to fury. They hated Gracchus
with a bitter hatred, and began to plot secretly for his overthrow.
About this time Attalus, king of Pergamus, moved by some erratic whim,
left his estates by will to the city of Rome. Those who had been
deprived of their lands claimed these estates, to repay them for their
outlays in improvement. Gracchus opposed this, and proposed to divide
this property among the plebeians, that they might buy cattle and tools
for their new estates.

His opponents were still more infuriated by this action. He had offered
himself for re-election to the of