orn, and perhaps disabled after long years of the
hardships of war, had neither the strength nor energy to set to the
heavy work of digging and preparing land that had been neglected for
years. At the same time the common lands, which were supposed to belong
to the whole people, who might graze their cattle or cut wood on them,
were taken in bit by bit by the big landlords in the war years. Thus men
who wanted land could not get it. Big estates grew bigger, and they were
run largely by slave-labour. The independent husbandman, who had been
the backbone of the Roman army, was vanishing. A few people began, in
Scipio's day, to be worried about this question of the land, because
they saw that if the peasants and farmers disappeared, the best soldiers
would disappear also.

All this was well known; it had been going on for long. People talked,
but nothing was done. Sometimes, however, there comes a man who has the
power to see and be moved to action by a thing which most people, out of
habit or laziness, take as a matter of course. Tiberius Gracchus was
such a man. In his young manhood he was quiet, rather shy, and very
silent; he thought a great deal and said little about it. Some people
regarded him as slow. His was the slowness of a mind that takes a long
time to be sure of a thing but, once sure, never lets go. When he did
speak, men observed that his remarks were just and well considered and
went to the heart of the matter. His devotion to duty was obvious; as a
soldier he won the respect and love of his men by his unvarying fairness
of temper and the fact that he never asked them to take a risk or bear a
hardship that he did not share himself. And he acquired, too,
a reputation for integrity which was, as Plutarch tells us, of infinite
value.

_Tiberius Gracchus. The Value of a Reputation for Integrity_

After the Libyan expedition Gracchus was elected quaestor, and it
was his lot to serve against the Numantines under the Consul Gaius
Mancinus, who had some good qualities, but was the most
unfortunate of Roman generals. Thus unexpected situations and
reverses in the field brought more clearly into light, not only
the ability and courage of Tiberius, but--what was more
remarkable--his respect and regard for his superior, who was so
crushed by disaster that he hardly knew whether he was in command
or not. After some decisive defeats Mancinus left his camp and
attempted to retire by night, but