In this period Latin prose acquired further versatility and range because Gracchus was a man of genius, believed in a cause which gave full scope to his great powers, and spoke before different audiences that required of him widely varying types of appeal. His was the task of shattering the power of the most stubborn aristocracy that the world has known, of organizing a new democratic machinery of government, of extending the suffrage throughout Italy, of saving the native stock by a vast scheme of colonization. He was stirred by an unflinching devotion to his cause, by bitterness at the murder of his brother, and by the knowledge that he too was marked for death. It is blasphemy against the informing spirit of great art to attribute his effects to rules, and not to acknowledge that genius fighting in such a cause is an independent creative force. Cato had already shaped his weapons for him. Gracchus, more richly endowed with vision, with sympathy, with intellect and wit, filed and hammered the weapons into a finished armory. There is no tool of persuasion that he did not have to employ. He used a simple, rude, staccato narrative when explaining before the rabble conditions that must be cured;[19] in elaborate argument, where the light and shade must be exact, he employed periods as well-packed, though not so musical, as those of Cicero.[20] Before senators his diction was as grave and lordly as theirs, while in the forum, though never coarse, he could be as colloquial as Cato. His vituperation carried the deep thrust of the lance rather than the rapier cut,[21] for he liked to play with lingering irony. His emotional appeal reminds one of the language of Ennius’ tragedies.[22] And yet Cicero was not quite satisfied with his speeches as works of art. What was lacking was after all what Gracchus would have disregarded even had he lived in Cicero’s day: a more careful modulation, a studied use of rhythm, a concern for the collocation of sounds, a more elaborate sentence structure, and a more apparent contrast of light and shade. Those are qualities that do not belong to the expression of revolutionary reformers who have but a year or two in which to perform a great life-work. They must come with leisure and tranquility when men have time to try the sound and taste of phrases in patient reiteration. Meanwhile Latin prose had been fortunate in finding men like Cato and Gracchus to make it vivid, clear, versatile, and vibrant. After these two men and the scores of speakers that they drew into the arena,[23] no Roman could again write Latin with the shambling gait of Ennius’ _Euhemerus_ without serious apology. And it is safe to say that even writers of history and autobiography, who became numerous in the Gracchan period and after, comprehended now that sentences must have clarity, unity, logic, and precision.