xisted then in Italy other occupied
domain land of any extent save that which was enjoyed by them.

We find isolated enactments of Drusus--such as the regulation that the
punishment of scourging might only be inflicted on the Latin soldier by
the Latin officer set over him, and not by the Roman officer--which were
to all appearance intended to indemnify the Latins for other losses. The
plan was not the most refined. The attempt at rivalry was too clear; the
endeavor to draw the fair bond between the nobles and the proletariat
still closer by their exercising jointly a tyranny over the Latins was
too transparent; the inquiry suggested itself too readily.

In what part of the peninsula, now that the Italian domains had been
mainly given away already--even granting that the whole domains assigned
to the Latins were confiscated--was the occupied domain land requisite
for the formation of twelve new, numerous, and compact burgess
communities to be discovered? Lastly, the declaration of Drusus that he
would have nothing to do with the execution of his law was so dreadfully
prudent as to border on sheer folly. But the clumsy snare was quite
suited to the stupid game which they wished to catch. There was the
additional and perhaps decisive consideration that Gracchus, on whose
personal influence everything depended, was just then establishing the
Carthaginian colony in Africa, and that his lieutenant in the capital,
Marcus Flaccus, played into the hands of his opponents by his vehement
and maladroit acts. The "people" accordingly ratified the Livian laws as
readily as it had before ratified the Sempronian. It then as usual
repaid its latest by inflicting a gentle blow on its earlier benefactor,
declining to reelect him when he stood for the third time as a candidate
for the tribunate for the year B.C. 120. On this occasion, however,
there are alleged to have been unjust proceedings on the part of the
tribune presiding at the election, who had been offended by Gracchus.

Thus the foundation of his despotism gave way beneath him. A second blow
was inflicted on him by the consular elections, which not only proved,
in a general sense, adverse to the democracy, but which placed at the
head of the State Lucius Opimius, one of the least scrupulous chiefs of
the strict aristocratic party and a man firmly resolved to get rid of
their dangerous antagonist at the earliest opportunity. Such an
opportunity soon occurred. On the 10th of Dec