CAIUS GRACCHUS.--The laws of _Caius Gracchus_, the brother of Tiberius, were of a more sweeping character. He caused measures to be passed, and colonies to be sent out, by decrees of the people, without any action of the Senate. He renewed the agrarian law. He caused a law to be passed for selling corn for less than the cost, to all citizens who should apply for it. He also caused it to be ordained, that juries should be taken from the knights, the _equites_, instead of the Senate. These were composed of rich men. The tendency of the law would be to make the equestrian order distinct, and thus to divide the aristocracy. The proposal (122), which was not passed, to extend the franchise to the Latins, and perhaps to the Italians, cost him his popularity, although the measure was just. The Senate gave its support to a rival tribune, _M. Livius Drusus_, who outbid _Gracchus_ in the contest for popular favor. In 121 _Gracchus_ was not made tribune. In the disorder that followed, he, with several hundred of his followers, was killed by the _optimates_. Before long most of his enactments were reversed. The law for the cheap sale of corn, the most unwise of his measures, continued. THE JUGURTHINE WAR.--An interval of tranquility followed. But the corruption of the ruling class was illustrated in connection with the Jugurthine war. _Jugurtha_, the adopted son of the king of _Numidia_, the ally of Rome, wishing the whole kingdom for himself, killed one of the sons of the late king, and made war upon the other, who applied to the Romans for help. The commission sent out by the Senate was bribed by _Jugurtha_. Not until he took the city of _Cirta_, and put to death the remaining brother, with all his army, was he summoned to Rome. There, too, his money availed to secure him impunity, although he caused a Numidian prince to be murdered in Rome itself. When the Romans finally entered on the war with _Jugurtha_, he bribed the generals, so that little was effected. The indignation of the people was raised to such a pitch that they would not leave the direction of the war in the hands of _Quintus Metellus_, whom the Senate had sent out, and who defeated _Jugurtha_ (108), but insisted on giving the chief command to one of his subordinate officers, _Caius Marius_ (107), the son of a peasant, wild and rough in his manners, but of extraordinary talents as a soldier. He brought the war to an end. _Jugurtha_ was delivered up by the prince with whom he had taken refuge to _L. Cornelius Sulla_, one of the generals under _Marius_, and in 105, with his two sons, marched in chains before the triumphal car of _Marius_ through the streets of Rome. _Marius_ was now the leader of the popular party, and the most influential man in Rome.