h
degree, had also an active questioning mind. It did not seem to him that
the men who ruled the State were wise or just or generous enough to lay
down, once for all, the lines on which it was to move for ever. The
citizen had a duty to the Republic beyond that of loyal and obedient
devotion. He must use not only his arm in its service but his mind also.
He must help it to grow; make Rome worthy of the greatness about which
people talked so lightly and easily. The greatness had been won at a
fearful price. Hundreds of thousands of Roman soldiers had laid down
their lives to make it; hundreds of thousands more had given their best
years to its service, asking no reward but that the Republic should
stand safe. It could, Caius thought, only be safe, only be great in so
far as it became more and more the city of free men in fact as well as
name.

With such thoughts as these moving in his mind he turned in loathing
from the life of the young Roman noble of his own age and class. He had
no use for personal luxury; wine and fine clothes and a gorgeous house
in which to live a life of ease and idleness--these things were nothing
to him. While serving abroad in Spain, Sardinia, and elsewhere, he
shared the hardships of his soldiers, and spent his own money in the
effort to make their hard lot less severe. Such leisure as he had was
occupied in reading. In this way he disciplined and fortified his mind.
Moreover, Caius had before him a fixed purpose, a clearly determined
work in life. For that he was preparing. One of his weapons was to be
the art of speech. He studied, therefore, particularly the works of the
great Greek orators. He wanted to learn, and he did learn, how to use
words to persuade men and impel them to action. He made himself one of
the greatest orators Rome knew. His speeches are lost, but accounts of
them remain, and they tell how Caius could set his hearers on fire, stir
them to tears or anger.

[Illustration: ELABORATE LAMP
to show the luxury of later times]

When, nine years after Tiberius's death, Caius Gracchus came back to
Rome (124), he found that men were waiting eagerly for him. Tiberius had
not been forgotten. The poor hoped, the rich feared that Caius had come
as his avenger. When he stood for the tribuneship the party in the
Senate that had thwarted and finally murdered Tiberius strained every
nerve to prevent Caius's election. They did not wait to hear what his
plans were. They knew that he