ing Drusus about, so as to lend him the support which an
apparent majority always confers, Philippus came forward as the
champion of the opposite side. He seems to have been a turncoat, with
a fluent tongue and few principles. He had no sympathy with the
generous, if flighty, liberalism of the party of Drusus. No doubt it
seemed to him weak sentimentalism; and he openly said that he must
take counsel with other people, as he could not carry on the
government with such a Senate. Accordingly he appealed to the worst
Roman prejudices, viz. the selfishness of large occupiers and the
anti-Italian sentiments of the mob. This explains his being numbered
among the popular party, with which the Italian party was not now
identical. Drusus, when his subsidiary measures had proved abortive,
grew desperate. As his influence in the Senate waned he entered
into closer alliance with the Italians, who, on their part, bound
themselves by an oath to treat as their friend or enemy each friend
or enemy of Drusus; and it is conjectured, from a fragment of
Diodorus, that 10,000 of them, led by Pompaedius Silo, armed with
daggers, set out for Rome to demand the franchise, but were persuaded
to desist from their undertaking. [Sidenote: Drusus almost monarch.]
Monarchy seemed once more imminent; and now, as in the case of
Gracchus, it is impossible to say whether the attitude of the
champion of reform was due to the force of circumstances or to
settled design. But Philippus was equal to the occasion. He induced
the Senate to annul the laws of Drusus already carried, and summoned
the occupiers of the public land whom that law affected, to come and
confront the Italians in Rome. [Sidenote: Assassination of Drusus.]
A battle in the streets would have no doubt ensued; but it was
prevented by the assassination of Drusus, who was one evening stabbed
mortally in his own house. It is said that when dying he ejaculated
that it would be long before the State had another citizen like him.
He seems to have had much of the disinterested spirit of Caius
Gracchus, though with far inferior ability; and, like him, he left a
mother Cornelia, to do honour by her fortitude to the memory of her
son. That year the presentiment of coming political convulsions found
expression in reports of supernatural prodigies, while 'signs both on
the earth and in the heavens portended war and bloodshed, the tramp
of hostile armies, and the devastation of the peninsula.'

*