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24]
Having lost the favor of the rabble, Gracchus sailed for
Africa in company with Fulvius Flaccus,
who, after his consulship, had been chosen tribune for the same reasons as
Gracchus himself. A colony had been voted to
Africa on account of its reputed fertility, and these men
had been expressly chosen the founders of it in order to get them out of the
way for a while, so that the Senate might have a respite from demagogism.
They marked out a town for the colony on the place where
Carthage had formerly stood,
disregarding the fact that Scipio, when he destroyed it, had devoted it with
curses to sheep-pasturage forever. They assigned 6000 colonists to this
place, instead of the smaller number fixed by law, in order further to curry
favor with the people thereby. When they returned to
Rome they invited the 6000 from the whole
of
Italy. The functionaries who
were still in
Africa laying out the
city wrote home that wolves had pulled up and scattered the boundary marks
made by Gracchus and Fulvius, and the soothsayers considered this an ill
omen for the colony. So the Senate
summoned the comitia, in which it was
proposed to repeal
the law concerning this colony. When
Gracchus and Fulvius saw their failure in this matter they were furious, and
declared that the Senate had lied about the wolves. The boldest of the
plebeians joined them, carrying daggers, and proceeded to the Capitol, where
the assembly was to be held in reference to the colony.
