a great number if the ring is enlarged, will perceive Caius's object, and be slow to admit that he spoiled the show. But though such acts pleased the people, all of them had not forgiven him the proposition about the franchise; and his popularity was on the wane. [Sidenote: Drusus outbids Caius.] The Senate had suborned one of his colleagues, M. Livius Drusus, to outbid him. Either Drusus thought he was guiding the Senate into a larger policy when he was himself merely the Senate's puppet, and this his son's career makes probable, or he was cynically dishonest and unscrupulous. Caius had meditated, it may be, many colonies, but, according to Plutarch, had at this time only actually settled two. Drusus proposed to plant twelve, each of 3,000 citizens. Caius had superintended the settlement himself, and employed his friends. With virtuous self-denial Drusus washed his hands of all such patronage. Caius had imposed a yearly tax on those to whom he gave land; Drusus proposed to remit it. Caius had wished to give the Latins the franchise; Drusus replied by a comparatively ridiculous favour, which, however, might appeal more directly to the lower class of Latins. No Latin, he said, should be liable to be flogged even when serving in the army. Drusus could afford to be liberal. His colonies were sham colonies. His remission of the vectigal was a thin-coated poison. His promise to the Latins was at best a cheap one, and was not carried out. But none the less his treachery or imbecility served its purpose, and the greedier and baser of the partisans of Gracchus began to look coldly on their leader. [Sidenote: Caius rejected for the tribunate.] It is stated, indeed, that on his standing for the tribunate a third time he was rejected by fraud, his colleagues having made a false return of the names of the candidates. In any case he was not elected, and one of the consuls for the year 121 was L. Opimius, his mortal foe.