Page:Plutarch's Lives (Clough, v.4, 1865).djvu/515

TIBERIUS GRACCHUS. 507 Cornelia, taking upon herself all the care of the house- hold and the education of her children, approved herself so discreet a matron, so affectionate a mother, and so con- stant and noble-spirited a widow, that Tiberius seemed to all men to have done nothing unreasonable, in choosing to die for such a woman ; who, when king Ptolemy him- self proffered her his crown, and would have married her, refused it, and chose rather to live a widow. In this state she continued, and lost all her children, except one daugh- ter, who was married to Scipio the younger, and two sons, Tiberius and Caius, whose lives we are now writing. These she brought up with such care, that though they were without dispute in natural endowments and disposi- tions the first among the Eomans of their time, yet they seemed to owe their virtues even more to their education than to their birth. And as, in the statues and pictures made of Castor and Pollux, though the brothers resemble one another, yet there is a difference to be perceived in their countenances, between the one, who delighted in the cestus, and the other, that was famous in the course, so between these two noble youths, though there was a strong general likeness in their common love of fortitude and temperance, in their liberality, their eloquence, and their greatness of mind, yet in their actions and admin- istrations of public affairs, a considerable variation showed itself. It will not be amiss, before we proceed, to mark the difference between them. Tiberius, in the form and expression of his countenance, and in his gesture and motion, was gentle and composed ; but Caius, earnest and vehement. And so, in their public speeches to the people, the one spoke in a quiet orderly manner, standing throughout on the same spot ; the other would walk about on the hustings, and in the heat of his orations, pull his gown off his shoulders, and was the first