[103]
But nevertheless this path and this
system of undertaking public affairs was formerly more formidable, as in
many particulars the desire of the multitude and the whim of the people were
at variance with the interests of the republic. A law for the establishment
of the ballot was brought forward by Lucius Cassius. The people thought that
its liberties were at stake; the chief men of the state dissented, and in a
matter affecting the safety of the nobles, they feared the rashness of the
multitude, and the licentiousness of the ballot. Tiberius Gracchus brought
forward an Agrarian law. It was very acceptable to the people; the fortunes
of the poorer classes appeared likely to be established by it. The nobles
strove against it, because they saw that discord was excited by it; and
because, as the object of it was to deprive the wealthy men of their ancient
possessions, they thought that by it the republic was being deprived of its
defenders. Caius Gracchus brought forward a law respecting
corn. It was a very pleasing proposal to the common people at Rome; for food was to be supplied to them
in abundance without any trouble. The good resisted it because they thought
that its effect would be to lead the common people away from industry to
idleness, and because the treasury was likely to be drained by such a
measure.
This text is part of:
Search the Perseus Catalog for:
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.