Tiberius and Caius Gracchus

Plutarch

Plutarch. Plutarch's Lives, Vol. X. Perrin, Bernadotte, translator. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1921.

The people not only adopted this law, but also entrusted to its author the selection of the judges who were to come from the equestrian order, so that he found himself invested with something like monarchical power, and even the senate consented to follow his counsel. But when he counselled them, it was always in support of measures befitting their body;

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.