for there does not appear to have
now existed in Italy other occupied domain-land of any extent save that
which was enjoyed by them. We find isolated enactments of Drusus--
such as the regulation that the punishment of scourging might only be
inflicted on the Latin soldier by the Latin officer set over him, and
not by the Roman officer--which were to all appearance intended to
indemnify the Latins for other losses. The plan was not the most
refined. The attempt at rivalry was too clear; the endeavour to draw
the fair bond between the nobles and the proletariate still closer
by their exercising jointly a tyranny over the Latins was too
transparent; the inquiry suggested itself too readily, In what part of
the peninsula, now that the Italian domains had been mainly given away
already--even granting that the whole domains assigned to the Latins
were confiscated--was the occupied domain-land requisite for the
formation of twelve new, numerous, and compact burgess-communities to
be discovered? Lastly the declaration of Drusus, that he would have
nothing to do with the execution of his law, was so dreadfully prudent
as to border on sheer folly. But the clumsy snare was quite suited
for the stupid game which they wished to catch. There was the
additional and perhaps decisive consideration, that Gracchus,
on whose personal influence everything depended, was just then
establishing the Carthaginian colony in Africa, and that his
lieutenant in the capital, Marcus Flaccus, played into the hands of
his opponents by his vehement and maladroit actings. The "people"
accordingly ratified the Livian laws as readily as it had before
ratified the Sempronian. It then, as usual, repaid its latest, by
inflicting a gentle blow on its earlier, benefactor, declining to
re-elect him when he stood for the third time as a candidate for the
tribunate for the year 633; on which occasion, however, there are
alleged to have been unjust proceedings on the part of the tribune
presiding at the election, who had been formerly offended by
Gracchus. Thus the foundation of his despotism gave way beneath
him. A second blow was inflicted on him by the consular elections,
which not only proved in a general sense adverse to the democracy,
but which placed at the head of the state Lucius Opimius, who as
praetor in 629 had conquered Fregellae, one of the most decided
and least scrupulous chiefs of the strict aristocratic party,
and a man firmly resolved to