Tiberius and Caius Gracchus

But later on the neighbouring rich men, by means of fictitious personages, transferred these rentals to themselves, and finally held most of the land openly in their own names. Then the poor, who had been ejected from their land, no longer showed themselves eager for military service, and neglected the bringing up of children, so that soon all Italy was conscious of a dearth of freemen, and was filled with gangs of foreign slaves, by whose aid the rich cultivated their estates, from which they had driven away the free citizens.

An attempt was therefore made to rectify this evil, and by Caius Laelius the comrade of Scipio; but the men of influence opposed his measures, and he, fearing the disturbance which might ensue, desisted, and received the surname of Wise or Prudent (for the Latin word sapiens would seem to have either meaning). Tiberius, however, on being elected tribune of the people, took the matter directly in hand. He was incited to this step, as most writers say, by Diophanes the rhetorician and Blossius the philosopher.

Diophanes was an exile from Mitylene, but Blossius was a native Italian from Cumae, had been an intimate friend of Antipater of Tarsus at Rome, and had been honoured by him with the dedication of philosophical treatises. But some put part of the blame upon Cornelia the mother of Tiberius, who often reproached her sons because the Romans still called her the mother-in-law of Scipio, but not yet the mother of the Gracchi.