Page:Plutarch's Lives (Clough, v.4, 1865).djvu/555

CAIUS GRACCHUS. 547 becoming a man of his age and character. On the other side, the party which guarded Caius, were quiet and dili- gent, relieving one another by turns, and forecasting, as in a public calamity, what the issue of things might be. As soon as daylight appeared, they roused Fulvius, who had not yet slept off the effects of his drinking ; and having armed themselves with the weapons hung up in his house, that were formerly taken from the Gauls, whom he con- quered in the time of his consulship, they presently, with threats and loud acclamations, made their way towards the Aventine Mount. Caius could not be persuaded to arm himself, but put on his gown, as if he had been going to the assembly of the people, only with this difference, that under it he had then a short dagger by his side. As he was going out, his wife came running to him at the gate, holding him with one hand, and with her other a young child of his. She thus bespoke him : " Alas, Caius, I do not now part with you to let you address the people, either as a tribune or a lawgiver, nor as if you were going to some honorable war, when though you might perhaps have encountered that fate which all must some time or other submit to, yet you had left me this mitigation of my sor- row, that my mourning was respected and honored. You go now to expose your person to the murderers of Tibe- rius, unarmed, indeed, and rightly so, choosing rather to suffer the worst of injuries, than do the least yourself. But even your very death at this time will not be serviceable to the public good. Faction prevails ; power and arms are now the only measures of justice. Had your brother fallen before Numantia, the enemy would have given back what then had remained of Tiberius ; but such is my hard fate, that I probably must be an humble sup- pliant to the floods or the waves, that they would some- where restore to me your relics ; for since Tiberius was