1. The foregoing period is composed of the history of foreign wars alone; in this, on the contrary, Rome appears in a continual state of internal commotion. And if foreign hostilities interrupt this state of things for a short time, it is only that it may be renewed with more violence, till at last it ends in a furious civil war. As the almost boundless power of the senate had laid the foundation of an exceedingly hateful family aristocracy, against which the tribunes of the people arrayed themselves, in the character of powerful demagogues, there arose a new struggle between the aristocratic and democratic parties, which almost immediately grew into two powerful factions. This contest, from its extent and its consequences, soon became much more important than the ancient one between the patricians and the plebeians. This family aristocracy gradually arose from the power of the magistrates, who now not only enjoyed a very high political importance, but, by the government of the provinces, acquired immense wealth. The present aristocracy, then, consisted of the ruling families (_nobiles_) concentrated in the senate. The struggle with the opposite party, the people (_plebs_), became so much the more violent in consequence of the great abuses which had crept into the administration, particularly in the division of the lands of the republic; the ruling families securing to themselves the fruits of all the victories and conquests, while the power of the democracy, by the vast accumulation of people (without the means of livelihood, although voting in the _comitia_), especially of enfranchised slaves, who, though strangers, mostly without power or property, formed, nevertheless, the greater part of what was then called the Roman people. G. AL. RUPERTI, _Stemmata gentium Romanarum_. Goett. 1795, 8vo. Almost indispensable for obtaining a clear insight into the history of the Roman families, and of course into that of the state. 2. Commencement of the disturbances under the tribunate of Tib. Sempronius Gracchus, whom former connections had long made the man of the people. His desire was to relieve the distress of the lower orders; and the means whereby he hoped to do this was a better division of the lands of the republic, now almost exclusively in the hands of the aristocracy. His reform, therefore, naturally led at once to a struggle with that party. Tib. Gracchus however soon found, by experience, that a demagogue cannot stop where he would, however pure his intentions may be at first; and no sooner had he obtained a prolongation of his term of office, in opposition to the usual custom, than he fell a sacrifice to his undertaking.