ange would not be felt
at once to the full; but this was the most trenchant stroke which
Gracchus aimed at the Senate's power. Here, again, it is customary to
write of his actions as if they were governed solely by feeling, quite
apart from all considerations of right and wrong. But Cicero declares
that for nearly fifty years, while the equites discharged this office,
there was not even the slightest suspicion of a single eques being
bribed in his capacity as judex; and after every allowance has been
made for Ciceronian exaggeration, the statement may at least warrant
us in believing that Gracchus had some reason for hoping that his
change would be a change for the better, even if, as Appian declares,
it turned out in the end just the opposite. Indeed, it is beyond
question that, as the provinces were governed by the senatorial class,
judices who had to decide cases like those of Cotta would be more
fairly chosen from the equites than from the class to which Cotta
belonged.

[Sidenote: The taxation of Asia.] We know little of the arrangements
for the taxation of Asia made by Gracchus. He provided that the taxes
should be let by auction at Rome, which would undoubtedly be a boon
to the Roman capitalists and a check to provincial competition. He is
said also to have substituted the whole system of direct and indirect
taxes for the previously existing system of fixed payments by the
various states. There was a certain narrowness about the conceptions
of both the Gracchi with regard to the transmarine world, which was
common to all Romans; to which, for instance, Tiberius gave expression
when he spoke of the conquest of the whole world as a thing which his
audience had a right to expect; and this sentiment may have in this
instance influenced Caius to use harshness. [Sidenote: The common
criticism on the measure of Caius unjust.] But even here to condemn
without more knowledge of his measures would be unjust. Fixed payments
it must be remembered were not always preferable to tithes of the
produce. In a sterile year the payers of vectigalia would be best off.
Again, if a rich province like Asia did not pay tribute in proportion
to other provinces, a re-adjustment of its taxes would not seem to the
Romans unfair; and perhaps auction at Rome would after all be less
mischievous than a hole-and-corner arrangement in the provinces. If
the sheep were to be fleeced, they would not be shorn closest in the
capital. [Sidenote: Measur