the Gracchi._
The civil wars originated in the seditions which the Gracchi excited
regarding the agrarian laws; for they were minded to divide among the
people the lands which were wrongfully possessed by the nobility.
But to reform an abuse of so long standing was an enterprise full
of peril, or rather, as the event proved, of destruction. For what
disasters accompanied the death of the elder Gracchus! what slaughter
ensued when, shortly after, the younger brother met the same fate! For
noble and ignoble were indiscriminately massacred; and this not by
legal authority and procedure, but by mobs and armed rioters. After
the death of the younger Gracchus, the consul Lucius Opimius, who had
given battle to him within the city, and had defeated and put to the
sword both himself and his confederates, and had massacred many of the
citizens, instituted a judicial examination of others, and is reported
to have put to death as many as 3000 men. From this it may be gathered
how many fell in the riotous encounters, when the result even of a
judicial investigation was so bloody. The assassin of Gracchus himself
sold his head to the consul for its weight in gold, such being the
previous agreement. In this massacre, too, Marcus Fulvius, a man of
consular rank, with all his children, was put to death.