I. Caius Gracchus at first, either through fear of his enemies or with the view of making them odious, withdrew from the Forum87 and kept quiet at home, like a man humbled for the present, and intending for the future to keep aloof from public affairs; which gave occasion for some people to say that he disliked the measures of Tiberius, and had abandoned them. He was also still quite a youth, for he was nine years younger than his brother, and Tiberius was not thirty88 when he was killed. But in the course of time, as his character gradually displayed itself in his aversion to indolence, luxury, wine, and all matters of private profit, and it was clear, from his application to the study of eloquence, that he was preparing, as it were, his pinions for public life, and that he would not remain quiet; and further, when he showed by his defence of Vettius, one of his friends, who was under prosecution, the people all around him being wild and frantic with delight, that the rest of the orators were mere children, the nobles were again alarmed, and there was much talk among them that they would not allow Caius to obtain the tribunate. It happened without any set design that the lot fell on him to go as quÆstor to Sardinia,89 under Orestes90 the consul, which pleased his enemies, and was not disagreeable to Caius. For he was fond of war, and equally disciplined for military service and speaking in the courts of justice; but he still shrunk from public affairs and the Rostra, and as he could not resist the invitations of the people and his friends, he was well pleased with this opportunity of leaving Rome. It is true it is a common opinion that Caius was a pure demagogue, and much more greedy of popular favour than Tiberius. But it was not so in fact, and Caius seems to have been involved in public affairs rather through a kind of necessity than choice. Cicero the orator also says that Caius declined all offices, and had determined to live in retirement, but that his brother appeared to him in a dream,91 and said, “Caius, why do you linger? There is no escape: one life for both of us, and one death in defence of the people is our fate.”

II. Now, Caius during his stay in Sardinia exhibited his excellent qualities in every way; he far surpassed all the young men in military courage, in upright conduct to the subject people, in loyalty and respect to the commander; and in temperance, frugality, and attention to his duties he excelled even his elders. The winter having been severe and unhealthy in Sardinia, the general demanded clothing for his soldiers from the cities, upon which they sent to Rome to pray to be relieved from this imposition. The Senate granted their petition, and ordered the general to get supplies for the troops by other means; but as the general was unable to do this, and the soldiers were suffering, Caius went round to the cities and induced them voluntarily to send clothing and to assist the Romans. This, being reported to Rome, made the Senate uneasy, for they viewed it as a preliminary to popular agitation. Ambassadors also arrived at Rome from Libya, with a message from King Micipsa,92 that the king had sent corn to the commander in Sardinia, out of respect for Caius Gracchus. The Senate, taking offence at the message, would not receive the ambassadors, and they passed a decree that fresh troops should be sent out to replace those in Sardinia, but that Orestes should stay; intending by this measure to keep Caius there also, in respect of his office. On this being done, Caius immediately set sail in a passion, and appearing at Rome contrary to all expectation, was not only blamed by his enemies, but even the people considered it a strange thing for the quÆstor to leave his general behind. However, when the matter was brought before the Censors,93 he asked for permission to make his defence, and he produced such a change in the opinions of his audience, that he was acquitted, and considered to have been exceedingly ill used: he said that he had served in the army for twelve years, while others were only required to serve ten years, and that he had exercised the functions of quÆstor to the commander for three years, though the law allowed him to return after one year’s service; he added that he was the only soldier who took out a full purse with him and brought it back empty, while the rest took out with them only jars of wine, which they had emptied in Sardinia, and brought them back full of gold and silver.

III. After this, his enemies brought fresh charges against him, and harassed him with prosecutions on the ground of causing the defection of the allies and having participated in the conspiracy which had been detected at FregellÆ.94 But he cleared himself of all suspicion, and having established his innocence, immediately set about canvassing for the tribunate. All the men of distinction, without exception, opposed him; and so great a multitude flocked to Rome from all parts of Italy, to the Comitia, that many of them could not find lodgings, and the Campus Martius95 being unable to contain the numbers, they shouted from the house-tops and tilings. However, the nobility so far prevailed against the people as to disappoint the hopes of Caius, inasmuch as he was not returned first, as he expected, but only fourth. But upon entering on his office he soon made himself first, for he surpassed every Roman in eloquence,96 and his misfortunes gave him a licence for speaking freely when lamenting the fate of his brother. He took every opportunity of directing the thoughts of the people to this subject, reminding them of former times, and contrasting the conduct of their ancestors, who went to war with the Falisci on behalf of Gemicius, a tribune, who had been insulted by them, and condemned Caius Veturius to death because he was the only man that did not make way for a tribune as he was passing through the Forum. “But before your eyes,” he exclaimed, “these men beat Tiberius to death with staves, and his body was dragged through the midst of the city to be thrown into the Tiber; and all his friends who were caught were put to death without trial. And yet it is an old usage among us, if a man is accused of a capital charge and does not appear, for a trumpeter to come to the door of his house in the morning and summon him by the sound of the trumpet, and the judices cannot vote upon the charge till this has been done. So circumspect and careful were the Romans of old in the trials of persons accused.”

IV. Having first stirred up the people by such harangues as these (and he had a very loud voice, and was most vigorous in speech), he promulgated two laws:97 one, to the effect that if the people had deprived any magistrate of his office, he should be incapacitated from holding office a second time; and the other, which rendered a magistrate liable to a public prosecution if he had banished any citizen without trial. One of these rogations had the direct effect of branding with infamy Marcus Octavius, who had been deprived of the tribunate by Tiberius; and Popillius98 came within the penalties of the other, for during his prÆtorship he had banished the friends of Tiberius. Popillius did not stand his trial, and he fled from Italy; but the other law Caius himself withdrew, saying that he refrained from touching Octavius at the request of his mother Cornelia. The people admired his conduct on this occasion, and gave their consent, for they respected Cornelia no less for the sake of her sons than her father; and afterwards they set up a bronze statue99 of her, with the inscription—Cornelia, Mother of the Gracchi. There are recorded several things that Caius said in defence of his mother in a rhetorical and coarse way, in reply to one of his enemies. “What,” said he, “do you abuse Cornelia, the mother of Tiberius?” And as the man laboured under the imputation of being a dissolute fellow, he added, “How can you have the impudence to compare yourself with Cornelia? Have you been a mother, as she has?”—and more to the like effect, but still coarser. Such was the bitterness of his language, and many like things occur in his writings.

V. Of the laws100 which he promulgated with the view of gaining the popular favour and weakening the Senate, one was for the establishment of colonies and the distribution of Public Land among the poor; another provided for supplying the soldiers with clothing at the public expense, without any deduction on this account being made from their pay, and exempted youths under seventeen years of age from being drafted for the army; a third was in favour of the allies, and put the Italians on the same footing as the citizens with respect to the suffrage; another related to grain, and had for its object the lowering of the price for the poor; the last related to the judices, a measure which most of all encroached on the privileges of the senate—for the senate alone supplied judices for the trials, and this privilege rendered that body formidable both to the people and the equites. The law of Gracchus added three hundred equites to the senate, who were also three hundred in number, and it made the judices eligible out of the whole six hundred. In his endeavours to carry this law he is said to have made every exertion; and in particular it is recorded that all the popular leaders who preceded him turned their faces to the senate and the comitium while they were speaking, but he was the first who turned his face the other way to the Forum while haranguing the people, and he continued to do so; and by a small deviation and alteration in attitude he stirred a great question, and in a manner transformed the government from an aristocratical to a democratical form, by this new attitude intimating that the orators should direct their speeches to the many and not to the senate.

VI. The people not only passed this law, but empowered Gracchus to select from the equites those who were to act as judices, which conferred on him a kind of monarchical authority, and even the senate now assented to the measures which he proposed in their body. But all the measures which he proposed were honourable to the senate; such, for instance, was the very equitable and just decree about the grain which Fabius the proprÆtor sent from Iberia. Gracchus induced the senate to sell the grain and to return the money which it produced to the Iberian cities, and further to censure Fabius for making the Roman dominion heavy and intolerable to the subject nations; this measure brought him great reputation and popularity in the provinces. He also introduced measures for sending out colonies, the construction of roads, and the building of public granaries; and he made himself director and superintendent for the carrying all these measures into effect. Though engaged in so many great undertakings, he was never wearied, but with wonderful activity and labour he effected every single object as if he had for the time no other occupation, so that even those who thoroughly hated and feared him were struck with amazement at the rapidity and perfect execution of all that he undertook. But the people looked with admiration on the man himself, seeing him attended by crowds of building-contractors, artificers, ambassadors, magistrates, soldiers, and learned men, to all of whom he was easy of access; and while he maintained his dignity, he was affable to all, and adapted his behaviour to the condition of every individual, and so proved the falsehood of those who called him tyrannical or arrogant or violent. He thus showed himself more skilful as a popular leader in his dealings with men, and in his conduct, than in his harangues from the Rostra.

VII. But Caius busied himself most about the construction of roads,101 having in view utility, convenience, and ornament. The roads were made in a straight line, right through the country, partly of quarried stone and partly with tight-rammed masses of earth. By filling up the depressions, and throwing bridges across those parts which were traversed by winter torrents or deep ravines, and raising the road on both sides to the same uniform height, the whole line was made level and presented an agreeable appearance. He also measured all the roads by miles (the Roman mile is not quite eight Greek stadia), and fixed stone blocks to mark the distances. He placed other stones at less distances from one another on each side of the road, that persons might thus easily mount their horses without assistance.

VIII. As the people extolled him for all these services, and were ready to show their good will towards him in any way, he said on one occasion when he was addressing them, that he would ask a favour, which he would value above everything if it was granted, but if it were refused, he should not complain. It was accordingly expected that he would ask for the consulship, and everybody supposed that he would be a candidate for the consulship and the tribunate at the same time. When the consular comitia were near, and all were at the highest point of expectation, Caius appeared conducting Caius Fannius into the Campus Martius, and canvassing with his friends for Fannius.102 This gave Fannius a great advantage. Fannius was elected consul, and Caius tribune for the second time, though he was neither a candidate nor canvassed, but his election was entirely due to the zeal of the people. Perceiving, however, that the senate was clearly opposed to him, and that the kind feeling of Fannius towards him cooled, he forthwith endeavoured to attach the people by other measures, by proposing to send colonies to Tarentum and Capua, and by inviting the Latins to a participation in the Roman franchise. The senate, fearing that Gracchus would become irresistible, attempted a new and unusual method of diverting the people from him, by opposing popular measures to his, and by gratifying the people, contrary to sound policy. Livius Drusus was one of the colleagues of Caius, a man by birth and education inferior to none in Rome, and in character, eloquence, and wealth equal to any who enjoyed either honour or power by the aid of these advantages. To him accordingly the chief nobles applied, and they urged him to attack Caius, and to unite with them against him, not by adopting violent measures, nor coming into collision with the many, but by a course of administration adapted to please, and by making such concessions as it would have been honourable to refuse, even at the risk of unpopularity.

IX. Livius, having agreed to employ his tribunitian authority on the side of the senate, framed measures which had neither any honourable nor any useful object: he only had in view to outbid Caius in the popular favour, just as it is in a comedy, by making himself busy and vying with his rival. This showed most clearly that the senate were not displeased with the measures of Caius, but only wished to destroy him or completely humble him. When Caius proposed to send out ten colonies consisting of citizens of the best character, the senate accused him of truckling to the people; but they co-operated with Livius, who proposed twelve colonies, each of which was to consist of three thousand needy citizens. They set themselves in opposition to Caius when he proposed to distribute land among the poor, subject to a yearly payment to the treasury from each, on the ground that he was trying to gain the popular favour; but they were satisfied when Livius proposed to relieve the colonists even from this payment. Further, Caius gave them offence by proposing to confer on the Latins the Roman suffrage; but when Livius brought forward a measure which forbade any Latin to be beaten with rods even while serving in the army, they supported it. And indeed Livius himself, in his harangues to the people, always said that he only proposed what was agreeable to the senate, who had a regard for the many; which indeed was the only good that resulted from his measures. For the people became more pacifically disposed towards the senate; and though the most distinguished of them were formerly suspected and hated by the people, Livius did away with and softened their recollection of past grievances and their ill feeling, by giving out that it was in accordance with the wish of the senate that he had entered upon his popular career and framed measures to please the many.

X. But the best proof to the people of the good intentions and honesty of Livius was, that he proposed nothing for himself or in behalf of his own interests; for he appointed other persons to superintend the establishment of the colonies, and he did not meddle with the administration of the money, while Caius had assigned to himself most of such functions, and the most important of them. It happened that Rubrius, one of the tribunes, had proposed a measure for the colonisation of Carthage, which had been destroyed by Scipio; and as the lot fell on Caius, he set sail to Libya to found the colony. In his absence, Drusus, making still further advances, insinuated himself into the favour of the people, and gained them over mainly by calumniating Fulvius.103 This Fulvius was a friend of Caius and a joint commissioner for the distribution of lands; but he was a noisy fellow, and specially disliked by the senate; he was also suspected by others of stirring up the allies, and secretly encouraging the Italians to revolt; and though this was said without proof or inquiry, Fulvius himself gave it credit by his unwise and revolutionary policy. This more than anything else destroyed the popularity of Caius, who came in for his share of the odium against Fulvius. And when Scipio104 Africanus died without any obvious cause, and certain signs of blows and violence were supposed to be visible on the body, as I told in the Life of Scipio, the suspicion fell chiefly on Fulvius, who was his enemy, and on that day had abused Scipio from the Rostra. Suspicion attached to Caius also. So abominable a crime committed against the first and greatest of the Romans went unpunished, and there was not even an inquiry; for the many opposed it and stopped the investigation through fear for Caius, lest he should be discovered to be implicated in the murder. These events, indeed, belong to an earlier period.

XI. In Libya, as to the foundation of Carthage,105 which Caius named Junonia, which is the same as Heraea, it is said there were many supernatural hindrances. For the first standard was seized and broken by a violent gust of wind, though the standard-bearer stuck to it vigorously; and the victims which were lying on the altars were dispersed by a tempest, and scattered beyond the stakes which marked the limits of the city, and the stakes were torn up by the wolves and carried a long way off. However Caius, after settling and arranging everything in seventy days, returned to Rome upon hearing that Fulvius was hard pressed by Drusus, and that affairs required his presence. Lucius Opimius, a man who belonged to the faction of the oligarchs,106 and had great influence in the senate, failed on a former occasion when he was a candidate for the consulship, at the time when Caius brought forward Fannius and canvassed against Opimius; but now, being supported by a powerful party, it was expected that Opimius would be elected consul and would put down Caius, whose influence was already in some degree on the wane, and the people also were tired of such measures as his, for there were many who sought their favour, and the senate easily gave way.

XII. On his return from Libya, Caius removed from the Palatium to the neighbourhood of the Forum, as being a more popular place of residence, for it happened that most of the lowest classes of the poor lived there; he next promulgated the rest of his measures, intending to take the vote of the people upon them. As crowds were collecting from all parts to support Caius, the senate prevailed on the consul Fannius to drive out of the city all who were not Romans. Accordingly a strange and unusual proclamation was made, to the effect that none of the allies or friends of the Roman state should appear in Rome during those days; on which Caius published a counter edict, in which he criminated the consul and promised his support to the allies if they remained in Rome. But he did not keep his promise; for though he saw one of them, who was his own friend and intimate, dragged off by the officers of Fannius, he passed by without helping him, whether it was that he feared to put to the test his power which was now on the decline, or that he did not choose, as he said, to give his enemies the opportunity which they were seeking of coming to a collision and a struggle. It also chanced that he had incurred the ill-will of his fellow-colleagues, in the following manner:—The people were going to see an exhibition of gladiators in the Forum, and most of the magistrates had constructed seats round the place, with the intention of letting them for hire. But Caius urged them to remove the seats, that the poor might be able to see the show without paying. As no one took any notice of what he said, he waited till the night before the show, when he went with the workmen whom he had under him, and removed the seats, and at daybreak he pointed out to the people that the place was clear; for which the many considered him a man, but he offended his colleagues, who viewed him as an audacious and violent person. Owing to this circumstance, it is supposed, he lost his third tribunate, though he had most votes, for it is said that his colleagues acted illegally and fraudulently in the proclamation and return. This, however, was disputed. Caius did not bear his failure well: and to his enemies, who were exulting over him, he is said to have observed, with more arrogance than was befitting, that their laugh was a sardonic laugh,107 for they knew not what a darkness his political measures had spread all around them.

XIII. After effecting the election of Opimius to the consulship, the enemies of Caius began to repeal many of his laws and to disturb the settlement of Carthage, for the purpose of irritating Caius, in order that he might give them some cause of quarrel, and so be got rid of. He endured this for some time, but his friends, and especially Fulvius, beginning to urge him on, he again attempted to combine his partisans against the consul. On this occasion it is said that his mother also helped him, by hiring men from remote parts and sending them to Rome in the disguise of reapers, for it is supposed that these matters are obscurely alluded to in her letters108 to her son. Others, on the contrary, say that this was done quite contrary to the wishes of Cornelia. On the day on which the party of Opimius intended to repeal the laws of Caius, the Capitol had been occupied by the opposite faction early in the morning. The consul had offered the sacrifices, and one of his officers, named Quintus Antyllius,109 was carrying the viscera to another part, when he said to the partisans of Fulvius, “Make way for honest men, you rascals.” Some say that as he uttered these words he also held out his bare arm with insulting gestures. However this may be, Antyllius was killed on the spot, being pierced with large styles110 said to have been made expressly for the purpose. The people were greatly disturbed at the murder, but it produced exactly opposite effects on the leaders of the two parties. Caius was deeply grieved at what had happened, and abused his party for having given a handle to their enemies, who had long been looking for it; but Opimius, as if he had got the opportunity which he wanted, was highly elated, and urged the people to avenge the murder.

XIV. A torrent of rain happened to fall just then, and the meeting was dissolved. Early on the following day Opimius summoned the senate to transact business. In the mean time the naked body of Antyllius was placed on a bier, and, according to arrangement, carried through the Forum past the senate-house with loud cries and lamentations. Opimius, though he knew what was going on, pretended to be surprised at the noise, and the senators went out to see what was the matter. When the bier had been set down in the midst of the crowd, the senators began to express their indignation at so horrible and monstrous a crime; but this only moved the people to hate and execrate the oligarchs, who, after murdering Tiberius Gracchus in the Capitol, a tribune, had treated his body with insult; while Antyllius, a mere servant, who perhaps had not deserved his fate, yet was mainly to blame for what happened, was laid out in the Forum, and surrounded by the Roman senate lamenting and assisting at the funeral of a hireling; and all this merely to accomplish the ruin of the only remaining guardian of the people’s liberties. On returning to the senate-house, the senators passed a decree111 by which the consul Opimius was directed to save the state in such way as he could, and to put down the tyrants. Opimius gave notice to the senators to arm, and each eques was commanded to bring in the morning two armed slaves. On the other side, Fulvius also made preparation and got together a rabble; but Caius as he left the Forum stood opposite his father’s statue, and looking at it for some time without speaking, at last burst into tears, and fetching a deep sigh, walked away. The sight of this moved many of the spectators to compassion, and blaming themselves for deserting the man and betraying him, they came to the house of Caius and passed the night at his door; but not in the same manner as those who watched about the house of Fulvius, for they spent the night in tumult and shouting, drinking, and bragging what they would do. Fulvius himself, who was the first to get drunk, spoke and acted in a way quite unseemly for a man of his age. The followers of Caius, viewing the state of affairs as a public calamity, kept quiet, thinking of the future, and they passed the night watching and sleeping in turns.

XV. At daybreak Fulvius was with difficulty roused from his drunken sleep, and his partisans, arming themselves with the warlike spoils in his house, which he had taken in his victory over the Gauls during his consulship, with loud threats and shouts went to seize the Aventine Hill.112 Caius would not arm, but went out in his toga just as if he was proceeding to the Forum, with only a short dagger at his side. As he was going out at the door, his wife met him, and throwing one arm round him, while she held in the other their little child, said, “Caius, not as in time past do I take my leave of you going to the Rostra as tribune and as legislator, nor yet going to a glorious war, where, if you died in the service of your country, you would still leave me an honoured grief; but you are going to expose yourself to the murderers of Tiberius: ’tis right indeed to go unarmed, and to suffer rather than do wrong, but you will perish without benefiting the state. The worst has now prevailed; force and the sword determine all controversies. If your brother had died at Numantia, his body would have been restored to us on the usual terms of war; but now perchance I too shall have to supplicate some river or the sea to render up to me your corpse from its keeping. What faith can we put in the laws or in the deities since the murder of Tiberius?” While Licinia was thus giving vent to sorrow, Gracchus gently freed himself from his wife’s embrace, and went off in silence with his friends. Licinia, as she attempted to lay hold of his dress, fell down on the floor, and lay there some time speechless, until her slaves took her up fainting, and carried her to her brother Crassus.

XVI. When they were all assembled, Fulvius, at the request of Caius, sent his younger son with a caduceus113 to the Forum. He was a most beautiful youth, and with great decorum and modesty, and with tears in his eyes he addressed to the consul and the senate the message of conciliation. The majority who were present were not disinclined to come to terms; but Opimius replied, that Fulvius and Gracchus must not attempt to bring the senate to an accommodation through the medium of a messenger; they must consider themselves as citizens who had to account for their conduct, and come down and surrender, and then beg for mercy; he further told the youth that these were the terms on which he must come a second time, or not at all. Now Caius, it is said, wished to go and clear himself before the senate, but as no one else assented, Fulvius again sent his son to address the senate on their behalf in the same terms as before. But Opimius, who was eager to come to blows, forthwith ordered the youth to be seized and put in prison, and advanced against the party of Fulvius with many legionary soldiers and Cretan bowmen114 who mainly contributed to put them into confusion by discharging their arrows and wounding them. The partisans of Fulvius being put to flight, he made his escape into a bath that was not used where he was soon discovered and put to death with his elder son. Caius was not observed to take any part in the contest, but greatly troubled at what was taking place, he retired to the temple of Diana, and was going to kill himself there, but was prevented by his faithful friends Pomponius and Licinius, who took the sword away and induced him to fly. It is said that he went down on his knees in the temple, and stretching out his hands to the statue of the goddess, prayed that the Roman people, for their ingratitude and treachery to him, might always be slaves; for the greater part of them had openly gone over to the other side upon an amnesty115 being proclaimed.

XVII. In his flight Caius was followed by his enemies, who were near overtaking him at the wooden bridge,116 but his two friends, bidding him make his escape, opposed the pursuers and allowed no man to pass the head of the bridge till they were killed. Caius was accompanied by a single slave, named Philocrates,117 and though all the spectators urged him to fly, just as if they were shouting at a race, yet no one, though he prayed for it, would come to his aid or lend him a horse: for the pursuers were close upon him. He just escaped into a sacred grove of the Furies,118 and there he fell by the hand of Philocrates, who killed himself on the body of his master. Some say both of them were taken alive by their enemies, and that the slave embraced his master so closely, that Caius could not be struck until the slave had been dispatched first, and with many blows. It is said that a man cut off the head of Caius and was carrying it away, but it was taken from him by a friend of Opimius named Septimuleius; for proclamation had been made at the beginning of the contest, that those who brought the heads of Caius and Fulvius should have their weight in gold. The head of Caius was brought to Opimius by Septimuleius stuck on a spear, and it weighed seventeen pounds and two-thirds in the scales. Septimuleius was a scoundrel and a knave119 here also, for he had taken out the brain and dropped melted lead in its place. Those who brought the head of Fulvius got nothing, for they belonged to the lower class. The bodies of Caius and Fulvius and their partisans were thrown into the river, the number of dead being three thousand: their property was sold and the produce paid into the treasury. They also forbade the women to lament for their relatives, and Licinia was deprived of her marriage portion. But their conduct was most cruel to the younger son of Fulvius, who had neither raised up his hand against them nor been among the combatants; for he was seized before the battle, when he came to treat of terms, and was put to death after the battle. But what most of all vexed the people was the circumstance of Opimius erecting a temple to Concord, which was viewed as an evidence of his insolence and arrogance, and as a kind of triumph for the slaughter of so many citizens. Accordingly by night some person wrote under the inscription on the temple the following line:—

XVIII. This Opimius,121 the first man that ever exercised the dictatorial power in the office of consul, and who had condemned without trial three thousand citizens, and among them Caius Gracchus and Fulvius Flaccus122—Flaccus, a consular, who had enjoyed a triumph; Gracchus, the first man of his age in character and reputation—this Opimius did not keep himself free from corruption. Being sent as a commissioner to Jugurtha, the Numidian, he was bribed by him, and being convicted of most shameful corruption, he spent the last years of his life in infamy, hated and insulted by the people, who, though humbled and depressed for the time, soon showed how much they desired and regretted the Gracchi. For they had statues of the two brothers made and set up in public places, and the spots on which they fell were declared sacred ground, to which people brought all the first fruits of the seasons, and many persons daily offered sacrifices there and worshipped, just as at the temples of the gods.

XIX. Cornelia is said to have borne her misfortunes with a noble and elevated spirit, and to have said of the sacred ground on which her sons were murdered, that they had a tomb worthy of them. She resided in the neighbourhood of Misenum, without making any change in her usual mode of life. She had many friends, and her hospitable table was always crowded with guests; Greeks and learned men were constantly about her, and kings sent and received presents from her. To all her visitors and friends she was a most agreeable companion: [Pg 112]
[Pg 113]
[Pg 114]she would tell them of the life and habits of her father Africanus, and, what is most surprising, would speak of her sons without showing sorrow or shedding a tear, relating their sufferings and their deeds to her inquiring friends as if she was speaking of the men of olden time. This made some think that her understanding had been impaired by old age or the greatness of her sorrows, and that she was dull to all sense of her misfortunes, while in fact such people themselves were too dull to see what a support it is against grief to have a noble nature, and to be of honourable lineage and honourably bred; and that though fortune has often the advantage over virtue in its attempts to guard against evils, yet she cannot take away from virtue the power of enduring them with fortitude.123