nstead of the senators; and gave doles of bread to
the Roman populace in the hope that he would then be able to persuade
them to give votes to the Italians and so make Italy really one.

The evil that men do lives after them:
The good is oft interred with their bones.

It was so with Caius Gracchus.

[Illustration: THE FISHERMAN]

But the real cause of the civil war lay much deeper than the work of any
single man or group of men. It was, in the main, the fact that while
Rome had grown, and grown into a new world, the old system of government
remained, and did not fit this new world. Rome was beginning to be a
great trading empire. Yet wealth and power was jealously held by a small
class in Rome in their own hands. The men of this class grew rich. They
went out to the provinces, to Sicily, Greece, and Spain, as governors
and made great fortunes. They came home with their riches and bought up
the land that had once belonged to peasants and farmers, and worked this
land with slaves. The condition of these slaves in the country was
miserable, especially that of those who lived herded in camps. The greed
of the agents of the tax-collecting companies made the Roman name hated
in the provinces. In Italy, too, there was deep discontent. To keep the
Roman poor quiet the ruling classes gave them games and bread-doles;
they altered the laws so that no Roman citizen could be condemned to
death for any offence. This kept the Romans quiet, but it made the
Italians, who had no share in it, increasingly restive.

[Illustration: THE RICH MATRON]

It had been clear to the far-seeing mind of Caius Gracchus that unless
Rome could draw fresh blood and life and energy from Italy it must
perish. The material wealth that was pouring into the city from all
parts of the world, from Carthage and Corinth and the conquered kingdoms
of the East, was doing more harm than good. Too many men, rich as well
as poor, were beginning to care only for pleasure and for money as a
means to pleasure. The luxury and extravagance of the rich made the
poverty of the poor bitter, and these poor, uneducated, idle, accustomed
to be kept in a good temper by splendid shows and presents of corn and
wine, were ready at any moment to rise in disorder and destroy those who
tried to help them. Most of them were not liable to military
service--that was still confined to the old classes of men who held
land; but they had votes, while the Italians had none. The t