is deeds and to receive the evidence of
his prowess from their unwilling lips. (Valesius, ib.)

[Footnote 46: P. Furius Philus (consul B.C. 136).]

_(BOOK 24, BOISSEVAIN.)_

[Sidenote: FRAG. LXXXIII] 1. (Par.) Tiberius Gracchus caused an upheaval
of the Roman state,--and this in spite of the fact that he belonged to
one of the foremost families (his grandfather being Africanus), that
he possessed a natural endowment worthy of the latter, that he had
gone through a most thorough course of education, and had a high
spirit. In proportion to these great gifts of his was the allurement
that they offered to follow his ambitions: and when once he had turned
aside from what was best he drifted even involuntarily into what was
worst. It began with his being refused a triumph over the Numantini:
he had hoped for this honor because he had previously had the
management of the business, but so far from obtaining anything of the
kind he incurred the danger of being delivered up; then he decided
that deeds were estimated not on the basis of goodness or truth but
according to mere chance. And this road to fame he abandoned as not
safe, but since he desired by all means to become prominent in some
way and expected that he could accomplish this better through the
popular than through the senatorial party, he attached himself to the
former. (Valesius, p. 621.)

2. (Par.) Marcus Octavius on account of an hereditary feud with Gracchus
willingly made himself his opponent. [Sidenote: B.C. 133 (_a.u._ 621)]
Thereafter there was no semblance of moderation: striving and
quarreling as they were, each to survive the other rather than to
benefit the community, they committed many acts of violence as if they
were in a principality instead of a democracy, and suffered many
unusual calamities proper for war but not for peace. In addition to
their individual conflicts, there were many who, banded together,
instituted grievous abuses and battles in the senate-house itself and
the popular assembly as well as throughout the rest of the city: they
pretended to be executing the law, but were in reality making in all
things every effort not to be surpassed by each other. The result was
that the authorities could not carry on their accustomed tasks, courts
came to a stop, no contract was entered into, and other sorts of
confusion and disorder were rife everywhere. The place bore the name
of city, but was no whit different from a camp. (Valesius, p. 622.