deputations to complain, but these complaints came before men who had
themselves governed provinces or else aspired to govern them. It had been
proved in too many instances that the law which professed to protect them
was a mere mockery.

Caius Gracchus secured the affections of the knights to himself, and some
slightly increased chance of an improvement in the provincial
administration, by carrying a law in the assembly disabling the senators
from sitting on juries of any kind from that day forward, and transferring
the judicial functions to the equites. How bitterly must such a measure
have been resented by the Senate, which at once robbed them of their
protective and profitable privileges, handed them over to be tried by
their rivals for their pleasant irregularities, and stamped them at the
same time with the brand of dishonesty! How certainly must such a measure
have been deserved when neither consul nor tribune could be found to
interpose his veto! Supported by the grateful knights, Caius Gracchus was
for the moment all-powerful. It was not enough to restore the agrarian
law. He passed another, aimed at his brother's murderers, which was to
bear fruit in later years, that no Roman citizen might be put to death by
any person, however high in authority, without legal trial, and without
appeal, if he chose to make it, to the sovereign people. A blow was thus
struck against another right claimed by the Senate, of declaring the
Republic in danger, and the temporary suspension of the constitution.
These measures might be excused, and perhaps commended; but the younger
Gracchus connected his name with another change less commendable, which
was destined also to survive and bear fruit. He brought forward and
carried through, with enthusiastic clapping of every pair of hands in Rome
that were hardened with labor, a proposal that there should be public
granaries in the city, maintained and filled at the cost of the State, and
that corn should be sold at a rate artificially cheap to the poor free