ich it bends, a nation must be fast going down hill.

A more repulsive picture can hardly be imagined. A mob, a moneyed
class, and an aristocracy almost equally worthless, hating each other,
and hated by the rest of the world; Italians bitterly jealous of
Romans, and only in better plight than the provinces beyond the sea;
more miserable than either, swarms of slaves beginning to brood
over revenge as a solace to their sufferings; the land going out of
cultivation; native industry swamped by slave-grown imports; the
population decreasing; the army degenerating; wars waged as a
speculation, but only against the weak; provinces subjected to
organized pillage; in the metropolis childish superstition, whole sale
luxury, and monstrous vice. The hour for reform was surely come. Who
was to be the man?

* * * * *

CHAPTER II.

TIBERIUS GRACCHUS.

[Sidenote: Scipio Aemilianius.] General expectation would have pointed
to Scipio Aemilianus, the conqueror of Numantia and Carthage, and the
foremost man at Rome. He was well-meaning and more than ordinarily
able, strict and austere as a general, and as a citizen uniting Greek
culture with the old Roman simplicity of life. He was full of scorn of
the rabble, and did not scruple to express it. 'Silence,' he cried,
when he was hissed for what he said about his brother-in-law's death,
'you step-children of Italy!' and when this enraged them still more,
he went on: 'Do you think I shall fear you whom I brought to Italy
in fetters now that you are loose?' He showed equal scorn for such
pursuits as at Rome at least were associated with effeminacy and vice,
and expressed in lively language his dislike of singing and dancing.
'Our children are taught disgraceful tricks. They go to actors'
schools with sambucas and psalteries. They learn to sing--a thing
which our ancestors considered to be a disgrace to freeborn children.
When I was told this I could not believe that men of noble rank
allowed their children to be taught such things. But being taken to a
dancing school I saw--I did upon my honour--more than fifty boys and
girls in the school; and among them one boy, quite a child, about
twelve years of age, the son of a man who was at that time a candidate
for office. And what I saw made me pity the Commonwealth. I saw the
child dancing to the castanets, and it was a dance which one of our
wretched, shameless slaves would not have danced.' On another