tradition of unselfish service to the
Commonwealth continued. Cornelia, the daughter of Scipio Africanus,
had been married to a Roman by the name of Gracchus. She had two sons,
Tiberius and Gaius. When the boys grew up they entered politics and
tried to bring about certain much-needed reforms. A census had shown
that most of the land of the Italian peninsula was owned by two thousand
noble families. Tiberius Gracchus, having been elected a Tribune, tried
to help the freemen. He revived two ancient laws which restricted the
number of acres which a single owner might possess. In this way he hoped
to revive the valuable old class of small and independent freeholders.
The newly-rich called him a robber and an enemy of the state. There were
street riots. A party of thugs was hired to kill the popular Tribune.
Tiberius Gracchus was attacked when he entered the assembly and was
beaten to death. Ten years later his brother Gaius tried the experiment
of reforming a nation against the expressed wishes of a strong
privileged class. He passed a "poor law" which was meant to help the
destitute farmers. Eventually it made the greater part of the Roman
citizens into professional beggars.

He established colonies of destitute people in distant parts of the
empire, but these settlements failed to attract the right sort of
people. Before Gaius Gracchus could do more harm he too was murdered and
his followers were either killed or exiled. The first two reformers had
been gentlemen. The two who came after were of a very different stamp.
They were professional soldiers. One was called Marius. The name of the
other was Sulla. Both enjoyed a large personal following.

Sulla was the leader of the landowners. Marius, the victor in a great
battle at the foot of the Alps when the Teutons and the Cimbri had been
annihilated, was the popular hero of the disinherited freemen.

Now it happened in the year 88 B.C. that the Senate of Rome was greatly
disturbed by rumours that came from Asia. Mithridates, king of a country
along the shores of the Black Sea, and a Greek on his mother's side,
had seen the possibility of establishing a second Alexandrian Empire.
He began his campaign for world-domination with the murder of all Roman
citizens who happened to be in Asia Minor, men, women and children.
Such an act, of course, meant war. The Senate equipped an army to march
against the King of Pontus and punish him for his crime. But who was to
be commander-