mind of the reformer it had buried its dead. The career of Tiberius Gracchus was the first sign of a great awakening; and if we regard it as illogical, and indeed impossible, to pause here and estimate the character of his reforms, it is because the more finished work of his brother was the completion of his efforts and followed them as inexorably as the daylight follows the dawn. CHAPTER III The attitude of the senate after the fall of Gracchus was not that of a combatant who had emerged secure from the throes of a great crisis. A less experienced victor would have dwelt on the magnitude of the movement and been guilty of an attempt at its sudden reversal. But the government pretended that there had been no revolution, merely an _emeute_. The wicked authors of the sedition must be punished; but the Gracchan legislation might remain untouched. More than one motive probably contributed to shape this view. In the first place, the traditional policy of Rome regarded reaction as equivalent to revolution. A rash move should be stopped in its inception; but, had it gone a little way and yielded fruit in the shape of some permanent organisation, it would be well to accept and, if possible, to weaken this product; it would be the height of rashness to attempt its destruction. The recognition of the _fait accompli_ had built up the Roman Empire, and the dreaded consequences had not come. Why should not the same be true of a new twist in domestic policy? Secondly, the opposition of the senate to Gracchus's reforms was based far more decidedly on political than on economic grounds. The frenzy which seized the fathers during the closing act of the tribune's life, was excited by his comprehensive onslaught on their monopoly of provincial, fiscal and judicial administration. His attempt to annex their lands had aroused the resentment of individuals, but not the hatred of a corporation. The individual was always lost in the senate, and the wrongs of the landowner could be ignored for the moment and their remedy left to time, if political prudence dictated a middle course. Again, reflection may have suggested the thought whether these wrongs were after all so great or so irremediable. The pastoral wealth of Italy was much; but it was little compared with the possibilities of enterprise in the provinces. Might not the bait of an agrarian law, whose chances of success were doubtful and whose operation might in time be impeded by craftily devised legislation, lull the people into an acceptance of that senatorial control of the foreign world, which had been so scandalously threatened by Gracchus? There was a danger in the very raising of this question; there was further danger in its renewal. A party cry seldom becomes extinct; but its successful revival demands the sense of some tangible grievance. To remove the grievance was to silence the demagogue; what the people wanted was comfort and not power. And lastly,