to procure his end by peaceable means. Driven into
a corner by the tactics of his opponents, he broke through the
constitution, and once having done so, went the way on which his acts
led him, without turning to the right hand or the left. There seems
to be not a sign of his having drifted into revolution. Because a
portrait is drawn in neutral tints, it does not follow that it is
therefore faithful, and those writers who seem to think they must
reconcile the fact of Tiberius having been so good a man with his
having been, as they assert, so bad a citizen, have blurred the
likeness in their anxiety about the chiaroscuro. No one would affirm
that Tiberius committed no errors; but that he was a wise as well as
a good man is far more in accordance with the facts than a more
qualified verdict would be.

[Sidenote: Mean behaviour of the Senate.] The Senate showed its spite
against the successful Tribune by petty annoyances, such as allowing
him only about a shilling a day for his official expenditure, and, as
rumour said, by the assassination of one of his friends. But, while
men like P. Scipio Nasica busied themselves with such miserable
tactics, Tiberius brought forward another great proposal supplementary
to his agrarian law. [Sidenote: Proposal of Gracchus to distribute the
legacy of Attalus.] Attalus, the last king of Pergamus, had just died
and left his kingdom to Rome. Gracchus wished to divide his treasures
among the new settlers, and expressed some other intention of
transferring the settlement of the country from the Senate to the
people. As to the second of these propositions it would be unsafe
as well as unfair to Gracchus to pronounce judgment on it without
a knowledge of its details. The first was both just and wise and
necessary, for previous experience had shown that the first temptation
of a pauper land-owner was to sell his land to the rich, and, as the
law of Gracchus forbade this, he was bound to give the settler a fair
start on his farm. [Sidenote: Retort of the Senate.] The Senate took
fresh alarm, and it found vent again in characteristically mean
devices. One senator said that a diadem and a purple robe had been
brought to Gracchus from Pergamus. Another assailed him because men
with torches escorted him home at night. Another twitted him with the
deposition of Octavius. To this last attack, less contemptible than
the others, he replied in a bold and able speech, which practically
asserted that the