Tiberius and Caius Gracchus

For when people met Nasica, they did not try to hide their hatred of him, but grew savage and cried out upon him wherever he chanced to be, calling him an accursed man and a tyrant, who had defiled with the murder of an inviolable and sacred person the holiest and most awe-inspiring of the city’s sanctuaries. And so Nasica stealthily left Italy, although he was bound there by the most important and sacred functions; for he was pontifex maximus. He roamed and wandered about in foreign lands ignominiously, and after a short time ended his life at Pergamum.

Now, it is no wonder that the people so much hated Nasica, when even Scipio Africanus, than whom no one would seem to have been more justly or more deeply loved by the Romans, came within a little of forfeiting and losing the popular favour because, to begin with, at Numantia, when he learned of the death of Tiberius, he recited in a loud voice the verse of Homer[*](Odyssey, i. 47 (Athena, of Aegisthus).):—

1. So perish also all others who on such wickedness
2. venture,