ates against the theory that Tiberius
was swayed by impulse and sentiment, and he by calculation and reason.
But no doubt he profited by experience of the past. He had learned how
to bide his time, and to think generosity wasted on the murderous crew
whom he had sworn to punish. Pure in life, perfectly prepared for a
death to which he considered himself foredoomed, glowing with one
fervent passion, he took up his brother's cause with a double portion
of his brother's spirit, because he had thought more before action,
because he had greater natural eloquence, and because being forewarned
he was forearmed.

In spite of the labours of recent historians, the legislation of Caius
Gracchus is still hard to understand. Where the original authorities
contradict each other, as they often do, probable conjecture is the
most which can be attained, and no attempt will be made here to
specify what were the measures of the first tribunate of Caius and
what of the second. [Sidenote: The general purpose of the legislation
of Caius.] The general scope and tendency of his legislation is clear
enough. It was to overthrow the senatorial government, and in the
new government to give the chief share of the executive power to the
mercantile class, and the chief share of the legislative power to the
country class. These were his immediate aims. Probably he meant to
keep all the strings he thus set in motion in his own hands, so as to
be practically monarch of Rome. But whether he definitely conceived
the idea of monarchy, and, looking beyond his own requirements,
pictured to himself a successor at some future time inheriting the
authority which he had established, no one can say. In such vast
schemes there must have been much that was merely tentative. But had
he lived and retained his influence we may be sure that the Empire
would have been established a century earlier than it was.

[Sidenote: Date of the tribunate of Caius, December 10, B.C. 124.]
Rome was thronged to overflowing by the country class, and the nobles
strained every nerve in opposition when Caius was elected tribune. He
was only fourth on the list out of ten, and entered on his office on
December 10, B.C. 124. With a fixed presentiment of his own fate, he
felt that, even if he wished to remain passive, the people would not
permit him to be so. He might, he said, have pleaded that he and his
young child were the last representatives of a noble line--of P.
Africanus and Tiber