ed into two
classes, patricians and plebeians. The plebeians by heroic efforts had
broken down the barriers that separated them from the patricians. The
privilege of intermarriage, the possibility of obtaining the highest
offices of the state, the substitution of the _comitia tributa_ for the
other two assemblies, had not made of Rome "an unbridled democracy," but
all these benefits obtained by tribunician agitation, all the far-reaching
advances gained by force of laws and not of arms, had constituted at Rome a
single people and created a true Roman nation. There were now at Rome only
rich and poor, nobles and proletariat. With intelligence and ability a
plebeian could aspire to the magistracies and thence to the senate. Why
should not the Italians be allowed the same privilege? It was neither just
nor equitable nor even prudent to exclude them from an equality of rights
and the common exercise of civil[38] and political liberty. The Gracchi
were the first to comprehend the changed state of affairs and the result of
Roman conquest and administration in Italy. Their demands in favor of the
Italians were profoundly politic. The Italians would have demanded, with
arms in their hands, that which the Gracchi asked for them, had not this
attempt been made. They failed; Fulvius[39] Flaccus, Marius,[40] and Livius
Drusus[41] failed in the same attempt, being opposed both by the nobility
and the plebs.

The agrarian laws, as we have seen, had been proposed by the senate, in the
period which we are considering. How was it then that the Gracchi had been
compelled to take the initiative and that the senate had opposed them? This
contradiction is more apparent than real. It explains itself in great part
by the following considerations. Upon the breaking down of the aristocracy
of birth, the patriciate, the senate was made accessible to the plebeians
who had filled the curule magistracies and were possessed of 800,000
sesterces. Knights were also eligible to the senate to fill vacancies, and
it was this fact which caused the equestrian order to be called _seminarium
senatus_. For some time the new nobles, in order to strengthen their
victory and make it permanent, had formed an alliance with the plebeians.
For this reason were made the concessions and distributions of land which
the old senators were unable to hinder. These concessions were the work of
the plebeians who had been admitted to the senate. But when their position
was ass