Civil Wars

This is the only case of armed strife that can be found in the ancient seditions, and this was caused by an exile. The sword was never carried into the assembly, [*](Y.R. 621) and there was no civil butchery until Tiberius Gracchus, [*](B.C. 133) while serving as tribune and bringing forward new laws, was the first to fall a victim to internal commotion; and many others besides, who were assembled with him at the Capitol, were slain around the temple. Sedition did not end with this abominable deed. Repeatedly the parties came into open conflict, often carrying daggers; and occasionally in the temples, or the assemblies, or the forum, some one serving as tribune, or prætor, or consul, or a candidate for those offices, or some person otherwise distinguished, would be slain. Unseemly violence prevailed almost constantly, together with shameful contempt for law and justice. As the evil gained in magnitude open insurrections against the government and large warlike expeditions against the country were undertaken by exiles, or criminals, or persons contending against each other for some office or military command. There were chiefs of factions in different places aspiring to supreme power, some of them refusing to disband the troops intrusted to them by the people, others levying forces against each other on their own account, without public authority. Whichever of them first got possession of the city, the others made war nominally against their adversaries, but actually against their country. They assailed it like a foreign enemy. Ruthless and indiscriminate massacres of citizens were perpetrated. Men were proscribed, others banished, property was confiscated, and some were even subjected to excruciating tortures. [*](Y.R. 672)