Tiberius and Caius Gracchus

whereas Antyllius, a mere servant, who perhaps had suffered more than he deserved, but was himself chiefly to blame for it, had been laid out in the forum, and was surrounded by the Roman senate, which shed tears and shared in the obsequies of a hireling fellow, to the end that the sole remaining champion of the people might be done away with. Then the senators went back into the senate-house, where they formally enjoined upon the consul Opimius to save the city as best he could,[*](The formal decree of martial law: consul videret ne quid respublica detrimenti caperet (Cicero, In Cat. 1. 2, 4).) and to put down the tyrants.

The consul therefore ordered the senators to take up arms, and every member of the equestrian order was notified to bring next morning two servants fully armed; Fulvius, on the other hand, made counter preparations and got together a rabble, but Caius, as he left the forum, stopped in front of his father’s statue, gazed at it for a long time without uttering a word, then burst into tears, and with a groan departed.

Many of those who saw this were moved to pity Caius; they reproached themselves for abandoning and betraying him, and went to his house, and spent the night at his door, though not in the same manner as those who were guarding Fulvius. For these passed the whole time in noise and shouting, drinking, and boasting of what they would do, Fulvius himself being the first to get drunk, and saying and doing much that was unseemly for a man of his years;

but the followers of Caius, feeling that they faced a public calamity, kept quiet and were full of concern for the future, and passed the night sleeping and keeping watch by turns.