Such are the differences between the two brothers, but their valor in war against their country’s enemies, their justice in the government of its subjects, their care and industry in office, and their self-command in all that regarded their pleasures, were equally remarkable in both. Tiberius was the elder by nine years; owing to which their actions as public men were divided by the difference of the times in which those of the one and those of the other were performed. The power they would have exercised, had they both flourished together, could scarcely have failed to overcome all resistance. Their greatest detractors and their worst enemies could not but allow that they had a genius to virtue beyond all other Romans, which was improved also by a generous education. Besides, the Gracchi, happening to live when Rome had her greatest repute for honor and virtuous actions, might justly have been ashamed if they had not also left to the next generation the whole inheritance of the virtues of their ancestors. The integrity of the two Romans, and their superiority to money was chiefly remarkable in this--that in office and the administration of public affairs they kept themselves from the imputation of unjust gain. The chief things in general which they aimed at were the settlement of cities and mending the highways; and in particular the boldest design which Tiberius is famed for is the recovery of the public land; and Caius gained his greatest reputation by the addition, for the exercise of judicial powers, of three hundred of the order of knights to the same number of senators. Tiberius was the first who attempted to scale the walls of Carthage, which was no mean exploit. We may add the peace which he concluded with the Numantines, by which he saved the lives of twenty thousand Romans, who otherwise had certainly been cut off. And Caius, not only at home, but in war in Sardinia, displayed distinguished courage. So that their early actions were no small argument that afterward they might have rivaled the best of the Roman commanders if they had not died so young. Of the Gracchi, neither the one nor the other was the first to shed the blood of his fellow-citizens; and Caius is reported to have avoided all manner of resistance, even when his life was aimed at, showing himself always valiant against a foreign enemy, but wholly inactive in a sedition. This was the reason that he went from his own house unarmed, and withdrew when the battle began, and in all respects showed himself anxious rather not to do any harm to others than not suffer any himself. Even the very flight of the Gracchi must not be looked on as an argument of a mean spirit, but an honorable retreat from endangering others.