THE HISTORY OF OLD ROME

IV. The Revolution

From: The History of Rome, by Theodor Mommsen
Translated with the sanction of the author by William Purdie Dickson

Chapter II - The Reform Movement and Tiberius Gracchus

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Page 10

The true candidate cringed not only in the palace, but also on the street, and recommended himself to the multitude by flattering attentions, indulgences, and civilities more or less refined. Demagogism and the cry for reforms were sedulously employed to attract the notice and favour of the public; and they were the more effective, the more they attacked not things but persons. It became the custom for beardless youths of genteel birth to introduce themselves with -eclat- into public life by playing afresh the part of Cato with the immature passion of their boyish eloquence, and by constituting and proclaiming themselves state-attorneys, if possible, against some man of very high standing and very great unpopularity; the Romans suffered the grave institutions of criminal justice and of political police to become a means of soliciting office.

The provision or, what was still worse, the promise of magnificent popular amusements had long been the, as it were legal, prerequisite to the obtaining of the consulship;(3) now the votes of the electors began to be directly purchased with money, as is shown by the prohibition issued against this about 595.

3. Cf. III. XI. Festivals

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