Tiberius and Caius Gracchus

as, for instance, the very equitable and honourable decree concerning the grain which Fabius the pro-praetor sent to the city from Spain. Caius induced the Senate to sell the grain and send the money back to the cities of Spain, and further, to censure Fabius for making his government of the province intolerably burdensome to its inhabitants. This decree brought Caius great reputation as well as popularity in the provinces.

He also introduced bills for sending out colonies, for constructing roads, and for establishing public granaries, making himself director and manager of all these undertakings, and showing no weariness in the execution of all these different and great enterprises; nay, he actually carried out each one of them with an astonishing speed and power of application, as if it were his sole business, so that even those who greatly hated and feared him were struck with amazement at the powers of achievement and accomplishment which marked all that he did.

And as for the multitude, they were astonished at the very sight, when they beheld him closely attended by a throng of contractors, artificers, ambassadors, magistrates, soldiers, and literary men, with all of whom he was on easy terms, preserving his dignity while showing kindliness, and rendering properly to every man the courtesy which was due from him, whereby he set in the light of malignant slanderers those who stigmatised him as threatening or utterly arrogant or violent. Thus he was a more skilful popular leader in his private intercourse with men and in his business transactions than in his speeches from the rostra.

But he busied himself most earnestly with the construction of roads, laying stress upon utility, as well as upon that which conduced to grace and beauty. For his roads were carried straight through the country without deviation, and had pavements of quarried stone, and substructures of tight-rammed masses of sand. Depressions were filled up, all intersecting torrents or ravines were bridged over, and both sides of the roads were of equal and corresponding height, so that the work had everywhere an even and beautiful appearance.