Gaius Gracchus (601-633) was very different from his brother, who was about nine years older. Like the latter, he had no relish for vulgar pleasures and vulgar pursuits; he was a man of thorough culture and a brave soldier; he had served with distinction before Numantia under his brother-in-law, and afterwards in Sardinia. But in talent, in character, and above all in passion he was decidedly superior to Tiberius. The clearness and self-possession, which the young man afterwards displayed amidst the pressure of all the varied labours requisite for the practical carrying out of his numerous laws, betokened his genuine statesmanly talent; as the passionate devotedness faithful even to death, with which his intimate friends clung to him, evinced the loveable nature of that noble mind. The discipline of suffering which he had undergone, and his compulsory reserve during the last nine years, augmented his energy of purpose and action; the indignation repressed within the depths of his breast only glowed there with an intensified fervour against the party which had disorganized his country and murdered his brother. By virtue of this fearful vehemence of temperament he became the foremost orator that Rome ever had; without it, we should probably have been able to reckon him among the first statesmen of all times. Among the few remains of his recorded orations several are, even in their present condition, of heart-stirring power[7]; and we can well understand how those who heard or even merely read them were carried away by the impetuous torrent of his words. Yet, great master as he was of speech, he was himself not unfrequently mastered by anger, so that the utterance of the brilliant speaker became confused or faltering. It was the true image of his political acting and suffering. In the nature of Gaius there was no vein, such as his brother had, of that somewhat sentimental but very short-sighted and confused good-nature, which would have desired to change the mind of a political opponent by entreaties and tears; with full assurance he entered on the career of revolution and strove to reach the goal of vengeance. "To me too", his mother wrote to him, "nothing seems finer and more glorious than to retaliate on an enemy, so far as it can be done without the country's ruin. But if this is not possible, then may our enemies continue and remain what they are, a thousand times rather than that our country should perish".
Cornelia knew her son; his creed was just the reverse. Vengeance he would wreak on the wretched government, vengeance at any price, though he himself and even the commonwealth were to be ruined by it - the presentiment, that fate would overtake him as certainly as his brother, drove him only to make haste like a man mortally wounded who throws himself on the foe. The mother thought more nobly; but the son - with his deeply provoked, passionately excited, thoroughly Italian nature - has been more lamented than blamed by posterity, and posterity has been right in its judgment.
Tiberius Gracchus had come before the burgesses with a single administrative reform. What Gaius introduced in a series of separate proposals was nothing else than an entirely new constitution; the foundation-stone of which was furnished by the innovation previously carried through, that a tribune of the people should be at liberty to solicit re-election for the following year[8]. While this step enabled the popular chief to acquire a permanent position and one which protected its holder, the next object was to secure for him material power or, in other words, to attach the multitude of the capital - for that no reliance was to be placed on the country people coming only from time to time to the city, had been sufficiently apparent - with its interests steadfastly to its leader. This purpose was served, first of all, by introducing distributions of corn in the capital. The grain accruing to the state from the provincial tenths had already been frequently given away at nominal prices to the burgesses[9]. Gracchus enacted that every burgess who should personally present himself in the capital should thenceforth be allowed monthly a definite quantity - apparently 5 modii (1 1/4 bushel) - from the public stores, at 6 1/3 asses (3d.) for the modius, or not quite the half of a low average price[10]; for which purpose the public corn-stores were enlarged by the construction of the new Sempronian granaries. This distribution - which consequently excluded the burgesses living out of the capital, and could not but attract to Rome the whole mass of the burgess-proletariate - was designed to bring the burgess-proletariate of the capital, which hitherto had mainly depended on the aristocracy, into dependence on the leaders of the movement-party, and thus to supply the new master of the state at once with a body-guard and with a firm majority in the comitia. For greater security as regards the latter, moreover, the order of voting still subsisting in the comitia centuriata, according to which the five property-classes in each tribe gave their votes one after another[11], was done away; instead of this, all the centuries were in future to vote promiscuously in an order of succession to be fixed on each occasion by lot. While these enactments were mainly designed to procure for the new chief of the state by means of the city-proletariate the complete command of the capital and thereby of the state, the amplest control over the comitial machinery, and the possibility in case of need of striking terror into the senate and magistrates, the legislator certainly at the same time set himself with earnestness and energy to redress the existing social evils.
It is true that the Italian domain question was in a certain sense settled. The agrarian law of Tiberius and even theallotment-commission still continued legally in force; the agrarian law carried by Gracchus can have enacted nothing new save the restoration to the commissioners of the jurisdiction which they had lost. That the object of this step was only to save the principle, and that the distribution of lands, if resumed at all, was resumed only to a very limited extent, is shown by the burgess-roll, which gives exactly the same number of persons for the years 629 and 639. Gaius beyond doubt did not proceed further in this matter, because the domain-land taken into possession by Roman burgesses was already in substance distributed, and the question as to the domains enjoyed by the Latins could only be taken up anew in connection with the very difficult question as to the extension of Roman citizenship. On the other hand he took an important step beyond the agrarian law of Tiberius, when he proposed the establishment of colonies in Italy - at Tarentum, and more especially at Capua - and by that course rendered the domain-land, which had been let on lease by the state and was hitherto excluded from distribution, liable to be also parcelled out, not, however, according to the previous method, which excluded the founding of new communities[12], but according to the colonial system. Beyond doubt these colonies were also designed to aid in permanently defending the revolution to which they owed their existence. Still more significant and momentous was the measure, by which Gaius Gracchus first proceeded to provide for the Italian proletariate in the transmarine territories of the state. He despatched to the site on which Carthage had stood 6000 colonists selected perhaps not merely from Roman burgesses but also from the Italian allies, and conferred on the new town Junonia the rights of a Roman burgess-colony. The foundation was important, but still more important was the principle of transmarine emigration thereby laid down. It opened up for the Italian proletariate a permanent outlet, and a relief in fact more than provisional; but it certainly abandoned the principle of state-law hitherto in force, by which Italy was regarded as exclusively the governing, and the provincial territory as exclusively the governed, land.
7. Such are the words spoken on the announcement of his projects of law: - "If I were to speak to you and ask of you - seeing that I am of noble descent and have lost my brother on your account, and that there is now no survivor of the descendants of Publius Africanus and Tiberius Gracchus excepting only myself and a boy - to allow me to take rest for the present, in order that our stock may not be extirpated and that an offset of this family may still survive; you would perhaps readily grant me such a request."