forced him to seek safety by flight. Thence he made the best of his way across a bridge that led from the city, still attended by his two generous friends, and a Grecian slave, whose name was Philoc'rates. 13. But his pursuers still pressed upon him from behind, and when come to the foot of the bridge, he was obliged to turn and face the enemy. His two friends were soon slain, defending him against the crowd; and he was forced to take refuge, with his slave, in a grove beyond the Ti'ber, which had long been dedicated to the Furies. 14. Here, finding himself surrounded on every side, and no way left of escaping, he prevailed upon his slave to despatch him. The slave immediately after killed himself, and fell down upon the body of his beloved master. The pursuers coming up, cut off the head of Gracchus, and placed it for a while as a trophy on a spear. 15. Soon after, one Septimule'ius carried it home, and taking out the brain artfully filled it with lead, in order to increase its weight, and then received of the consul seventeen pounds of gold as his recompence. 16. Thus died Cai'us Gracchus. He is usually impeached by historians, as guilty of sedition; but from what we see of his character, the disturbance of public tranquillity was rather owing to his opposers than to him; so that, instead of calling the tumults of that time the sedition of the Gracchi, we should rather call them the sedition of the senate against the Gracchi; since the efforts of the latter were made in vindication of a law to which the senate had assented; and the designs of the former were supported by an extraneous armed power from the country, that had never before meddled in the business of legislation, and whose introduction gave a most irrecoverable blow to the constitution. 17. Whether the Gracchi were actuated by motives of ambition or of patriotism, in the promulgation of the law, it is impossible to determine; but from what appears, justice was on their side, and all injury on that of the senate. 18. In fact, this body was now changed from that venerable assembly, which we have seen overthrowing Pyr'rhus and Hannibal, as much by their virtues as their arms. They were now only to be distinguished from the rest of the people by their superior luxuries; and ruled the commonwealth by the weight of an authority gained from riches and mercenary dependents. 19. The venal and the base were attached to them from motives of self-interest; and they who still ventured to be independent, were borne down, and entirely lost in an infamous majority. 20. In short, the empire at this period came under the government of a hateful aristocracy; the tribunes, who were formerly accounted protectors of the people, becoming rich themselves, and having no longer opposite interests from those of the senate, concurred in their oppressions; for the struggle was not now between patricians and plebeians, who only nominally differed, but between the rich and the poor. 21.