Gracchi

“ With them Gracchus concluded a peace, the conditions of which are unknown to us; but they were so fair, that these tribes, who in reality had no wish whatever for war, ever afterwards looked upon it as the greatest good which could befall them, if they were only allowed to have them. The whole family of the Gracchi is distinguished for an extraordinary mildness and kindness, which otherwise are quite foreign to the Roman character. Had his successors kept the peace, the Celtiberians would have become as true and as useful allies to the Romans as the Marsians and Pelignians. ”

“ The fall of the Gracchi left the people without a leader, and the optimates easily kept possession of the government, though they did not yet feel disposed to proceed at once to carry out their own wishes fully, for fear that they might sting the populares beyond endurance. They stopped the assignments of lands, however, allowing those who had occupied large tracts to keep them, and thus the desolation and retrogression which had so deeply moved Gracchus continued and increased even more rapidly than it had in his time. ”

“ Of the family of the Scipios, and mother of the Gracchi, so excelled in knowledge and the study of the sciences, that she was generally praised by the most learned men, for her probity, wisdom, and philosophy, lectures on for which she read publicly in Rome. Quintilian says, "We are much bound to the mother Cornelia for the eloquence of the Gracchi, whose unparalleled learning, in her excellent epistles, she hath bequeathed to posterity." Cicero says, in his Rhetoric, "That if the name of woman had not distinguished Cornelia, she had deserved the first place among philosophers ”

“ The mother of the Gracchi was the daughter of the first Scipio Africanus. With her father’s consent, Cornelia married a young plebeian, named Tiberius Gracchus.
Her husband died while her children were still young, and from that time Cornelia lived to train and educate her boys.
Princes in foreign countries heard of the wisdom and goodness of the noble matron, and journeyed to Rome to beseech her to bestow her hand upon them. Even King Ptolemy of Egypt wished to make her his queen. ”

“ What the life of Gracchus was in Sardinia he has himself told us; and from the implied contrast we may judge what was the life of the nobles of the time. [Sidenote: His description of the life of a noble.] 'My life,' he said to the people, 'in the province was not planned to suit my ambition, but your interests. There was no gormandising with me, no handsome slaves in waiting, and at my table your sons saw more seemliness than at head-quarters. No man can say without lying that I ever took a farthing as a present or put anyone to expense. ”

“ Saturninus had been instrumental in securing the election of Marius to his fifth consulship in 102, and it was about that time that the Lex Servilia was carried. This law defined the liability of Roman officials to trial for extortion in the provinces, and, by a process of elimination (for senators, workers for hire, and others were expressly declared ineligible) , practically left to the equites the jurisdiction in such trials. Whether or no the law of Gracchus had been repealed by another Servilian law—that of Q. Servilius Caepio—we cannot say for certain. ”

“ Although Gregory bewails this “thrusting out from port into the storm,” one cannot but feel how the alert fighting spirit in the man leaps to the call. The born leader may persuade himself that he is happiest in the seclusion he thinks good for his soul, but when the call to arms comes, every repressed fibre of his being wakes and cries for action.
When Gregory, taking with him several of his monks, sailed away from Italy, he little dreamed that years were to pass before he should return. ”

“ At last, after six years of what must have been the most anxious work, requiring all that the great man had of wisdom and firmness and tact, he returned to Italy—to find his beloved Rome in terrible distress from a visitation of the pestilence. Gregory at once devoted himself to the care of the sick and dying, and one can fancy how the poor people’s eyes lighted up when he appeared among them again. ”

“ Greccio is a tiny village, lying where the foothills begin, on the western side of the valley. The very feet of Brother Francis knew the road so well that he could have walked safely in the darkness, but it was not dark. The full moon floated over the valley, making the narrow river and the sharp outlines of the snow-covered mountains shine like silver. The plain and the lower hills were pasture land, and, not far from the road, on a grassy slope, the Brothers saw the red glow of an almost spent shepherds' fire. ”

“ Then came the Gracchan proposals which shook the staid government to its foundations. For a dozen years the keenest minds of Rome were pitted against each other, and victory lay not in arms but in the power of persuasion. There was much discussion in the senate, but Tiberius Gracchus carried the battle directly to the popular assembly, and that is where it was fought to the end. ”

“ The error in judgment is excusable in one who had never veiled his sympathy with the Italian cause, and had hitherto found it no hindrance to his popularity; but so clear-sighted a man as Gracchus must have felt at times that he was staking, not only his own career, but the fate of the programme and the party which he had built up, on the chance of securing an end, which had ceased to be regarded as the mere removal of an obstacle and had grown to be looked on as the coping-stone of a true reformer's work. ”

“ Gracie turned to Sir Beverley and lifted her bright face. "Good-bye! Thank you for being so kind."
There was no irony in her thanks, and even he could scarcely refuse the friendly offer of her lips. He stooped and grimly received her farewell salute on his cheek.
Piers loaded her with as many oranges as she could carry, and they finally departed through the great hall which Gracie surveyed with eyes of reverent admiration.
"It's as big as a church," she said, in an awed whisper. ”

“ Neither the influence nor the eloquence of Gracchus could induce the people to view with satisfaction the admission of the Italian allies to equal rights and privileges with themselves. The Senate, perceiving that the popularity of Gracchus had been somewhat shaken by this measure, employed his colleague, M. Living Drusus—who was noble, well-educated, wealthy, and eloquent—to undermine his influence with the people. ”

“ What shall we do for Gracie, I beseech you, reader? We can find all their happinesses, in this world, for Charlie, for Flossie Gower and Mr. Tamms, and even, through his vanity, for Wemyss—but how for her? And Gracie was—she was very lovely and contented, and she had the sunniest of smiles; she was one for some of us to love perhaps—but she was not exactly happy, you see. But what can we do? We cannot go with her to her own room, when she is alone; we may not dare to console her; we may not venture in, but stand awe-struck, hand upon the door. ”

“ He sold all [39] his goods, distributed the larger part to the poor, and, as if to atone for what the Lombards had destroyed, built and endowed six new monasteries, placing twelve Benedictines in each, in Sicily. That done, he converted his home on the Cœlian into a seventh, where he gathered another community about him, of the same learned Order. His father was dead, and his mother, on becoming a widow, had already built a convent close by, where she had taken the veil herself.
Gregory now devoted himself to three things—prayer, study, and charity. ”

“ Some months later, as Gregory was passing through Florence, Guy appeared, barefooted, in his shirt, with a rope round his neck, and thus followed the pope for two miles along the road, begging for mercy. Gregory put him as a prisoner of the church into the custody of the king of Sicily. ”

“ The History of the Franks by Gregory, bishop of Tours, is an historical record of great importance. The events which it relates are details of the perishing of the Roman Empire and the beginning of a great modern state and for these events it is often the sole authority. However although Gregory was relating history mainly contemporaneous or recent, we must allow largely for error and prejudice in his statements of fact. It is rather as an unconscious revelation that the work is of especial value. ”

“ Oh, how she would feel when Gracie was lifted up into Edward’s hands, and then he would toss her up and say:
“‘What’s the difference? She’s only made of rags. Why do you care? Gracie doesn’t.’ One day he left the doll high up in a tree out in the yard, and Grace was afraid that more snow would come in the night and that it would spoil her beloved Gracie, for there had been a late snow-storm that day. ”

“ Where the good of Rome, either the city or the Church, was concerned, he stopped at nothing. I have no desire to represent him as faultless. But the men who are faultless, if any are to be found, leave but a limited record, and there is little more to say of perfection than that it is perfect. Gregory was not so. He got very angry sometimes, with bishops in Sicily, with stupid intendants, above all with that Eastern John—and sometimes, which is worse, he was submissive and compliant when he ought to have been angry and denounced a criminal. ”

“ The spectacle of the crowd almost raving with joy and frantically applauding the new-found hero, showed that a man had appeared who could really touch the hearts of the people, and is said to have suggested to men of affairs that every means must be used to hinder Gracchus's accession to the tribunate. [578] The chance of the lot sent him as quaestor with the consul Orestes to Sardinia. ”

“ The church was half filled with soldiers armed to the teeth, and drawn up on either side, and his body-guard of Roman nobles, stood even within the railing of the altar, capped and motionless, conveying, as everything else does, the irresistible impression that it was the worship of the Pope, not of God.
Gregory the sixteenth, is a small old man, with a large heavy nose, eyes buried in sluggish wrinkles, and a flushed, apoplectic complexion. He sits, or is borne about with his eyes shut, looking quite asleep, even his limbs hanging lifelessly. ”

“ After partaking of a wonderful meal provided by Lady Wharton, Gracie's little brothers and sisters had the treat of sitting up late to look at father, who, weak as he was, would not go to bed, but reclined in an armchair lent by a sympathising neighbour--ah, how sweet and beautiful is the kindness of the poor to the poor!--and with Gracie's hand in his, gazed with gratitude upon the dear ones to whom he had been almost miraculously restored. ”

“ Gracchus's mind was still divided between resistance and resignation. He consented to accompany his reckless friend to the Aventine, as the only place of refuge; but he declined to don his armour, merely fastening under his toga a tiny dagger, [725] as a means of defence in the last resort, or perhaps of salvation, did all other measures fail. The presage of his coming doom was shared by his wife Licinia who clung to him at the door, and when he gently disengaged himself from her arms, made one more effort to grasp his robe and sank senseless on the threshold. ”

“ She then bade her attendants seize Graciosa and beat her as long as their strength held out, or until their staves were broken.
Graciosa would have begged for mercy, but suddenly a whisper sounded in her ear. “Fear not, Graciosa. I, Percinet, am beside thee. The blows shall not harm thee, but when they fall, cry out as though they were beyond all bearing.” ”

“ It would seem that in all the tumultuous and factious city there was but one thought of horror at the 249 sacrilege, and determination to save the Pope if it were still possible. Gregory was not, like his great predecessor the first of that name, the idol of his people. He had not the wealth with which many great ecclesiastics had secured the homage of the often famished crowd; and a stern man, with no special geniality of nature, and views that went so far beyond the local interests of Rome, he does not seem the kind of ruler to have secured popular favour. ”

“ Gregory was twice the age of the great countess, and was more her father than her lover. During her whole lifetime, she had been of a mystic temperament, and it is too much to ask us to believe that her great and holy ardor for the Church was tainted by anything like vice or sensuality. By reason of her great sagacity and worldly wisdom she was the most powerful and most able personage in Italy at the time of her death. If her broad domains could have been kept together by some able successor, Italian unity might not have been deferred for so many centuries ”

“ Gregory continued his journey, drawn along in the army of Robert Guiscard as in a chariot, which began now to be, as he reached the south Italian shores, a chariot of triumph. All the towns and villages on the way came out to greet the Pope, to ask his blessing. The bishop of Salerno, with his clergy, came forth in solemn procession with shining robes and sacred standards to meet him. Neither Pope nor prince could have found a more exquisite retreat from the troubles of an evil world. ”

“ His talents and activity in secular affairs were shewn also in his management of the possessions in various quarters with which the See of Rome had been endowed, known as “St. Peter’s patrimony.” In Sicily especially, and also in Campania, Calabria, Dalmatia and elsewhere, and to a small extent in Gaul, the Roman Church held lands so called, over all of which Gregory exercised personal superintendence by letters to his various agents, shewing a remarkable knowledge of the state of things in the several localities, and giving minute directions. ”