ORACCHUS, CAIUS, was nine years younger than Tiberius Gracchus, at whose death he was left with Appius Claudius as commissioner for carryiug out the Agrarian law. By the death of Appius, and of Tiberius's successor, Liciniui Crassus, the coustuissiou was composed of Fulvius Flaccus, Papirius Carbo, aud himself; but he refrained from taking any part in public affairs for more than ten years after that event.
During this time the provisions of his brother's law were being carried out by Carbo and Flaccus but he does not seem to have begun his career as an independent political leader until the year B.C. 123, when, on his return from Sardinia, where he had been for two years, he was elected tribune of the Plebs. His first act was to propose two laws, one of which, directed against the degraded tribune Octivius, disqualified all who had been thus degraded from holding any magis tracy; and the other, having in view 1'opilius, a prominent opponent of the popular party, denounced the banishment of a Rornau citizen without trial. The first was never carried through; to the latter was added a third, by which Popilius was banished Italy (forhiddeu fire and water). These measures of offence were followed by others, by which he aimed at establishing his own popularity. One of these was poor.law, by which a monthly distribution of corn was made to the people at an almost nomival price. The effect of this law was to make the population of Rome paupers, and to attract all Italy to partake of the bounty.
Next came organic changes, as they would now be called; and of these the most important was the transference of the judicial power from the senators, wholly or in part, to the equestrian order. This measure, according to Cicero, worked well; but iu taking his opinion we must remember his partiality to the equites; and add to this the fact that his eulogium occurs in an advocate's speech. (' In Verrem,' actin i.) Gracchus now possessed unlimited power with the populace; • and at the end of the year, not more than ten candidates having started for the office of tribune, he was again choseu. His second tribuneship was mostly employed in passing laws respecting the colonies, in which matter the aristocratical agent, Livius Drusus, outbid him ; and having won the confidence of the people by his apparent disinterestedness, ventured (being himself a tribune) to interpose his veto on one of Gracchus's measures. His appointment soon after to the office of commissioner fur planting a culouy near Carthage took him away from tho scenes of his popularity, and soon after his return s proposal was made to repeal the vary law which ho had been engaged in carrying out This law was not his own measure, but that of one Rubriva, another of the tribunes, and was one of those enactmenta which had weaned the favour of the people from him. Ile was now a private man, as his amend tribuwahip had expired, but as such he opposed the proposal, and united with h'ulvius, one of the commissioners of the Agrarian law, to incite the populace to acts of open violence.
Ilia partisans collected at the capitol on the day of deliberation, and by their outrageous conduct broke up the assembly. The senate, alarmed at these proceedings, gave the consul Ophnius full powers, according to the usual form," to take care that the state took no harm."
lie collected soldiers, and summoned Oracchus and Fulvius to answer the chance of murder. After some attempt at negotiation be attacked the popular party, and soon dispersed them. Gracehus had been too good a citlreu to abet in the resistance which his followers attempted, and Bed. Meg hard pressed he crossed the Tiber, aud there, in a Grove of the Furies, commanded his servant to destroy him. He perished when about thirty-three years of age, e.e. 121.
The character of Cahn is not nearly so stainless as his brother ; he was more of a popular leader, and much less of a patriot, than Tiberius ; tho one was injured by power, but the other seems from the beginning to have aimed at little else. The elder brother was head of a party which owed its life to his principles as a politician. The younger took the lead in that party when it had been regularly formed, and in his eagerness to obtain that poet regulated his conduct by its wishes. The death of Tiberius may be justly called a murder; that of Wm, or which he would have suffered had not the slave prevented it, was nothing more than an execution under martial law. Glts'EVISS, JOHN GEORGE, was born in 1632, at Nautuhurg in Saxony, and studied at Deventer under J. F. Gronovius, whom he succeeded some years after as professor of history and eloquence. He was afterwards appointed to fill the same situation at Utrecht, where he continued for above forty years, to the time of his death in January 1703. He acquired the reputation of one of the first classical scholars of his age, a reputation which ho supported by the numerous editions of ancient classical writers which he published and enriched with his own notes, such as Catullus, Tibullus, and Propertius, Catsais 'Com. menta.ies, the ' Epistles' and 'Offices' of Cicero, Suetonius, Lucian, Healed, end Callimachus; besides editions of modern works ou classical literature, such as Meursius, 'De Room Laconic', de Firm°, de Cypro, Ithodo, et Creta, &c.' lie also published 'Inseriptiones Antique totius Orbis Romnoi in abeolutissimum corpus redacte: But the greatest work of Grevius is his ' Thesaurus Antiquitatum Romanarum,' 12 vols. fol., Leyden, 1694-99, in which he has collected the beet writers who have illustrated the institutions and laws, the customs, the manners, aud the arts of the ancient Romans. He afterwards prepared, Al a sequel to it, an enormous collection under the title of Thesaurus Antiquitatnm et Historiarum Italian, Neapolis, Corsica', aliarumque Insularum adjacentium, which was pribli.ho.1 after his death by Peter Burmann, with additions, in 45 vols. foL, Leyden, 1704-25. Grevius published also a collection of rare and choice treatises, by various writers, on curious subjects connected with ancient history, such as T. Rcinesius, 'De Lingua Punka,' aud Do Deo Endovellico,' by the same; C. Daumius, 'De Canals Amissa rum Latina, Lingua Itadicum ; ' C. F. Frankenstein, De iErario Popuii Romani,' &c. This collection is entitled 'Syntagma Variarum Diasertationum; 4to, Utrecht, 1702. T. A. Fabricius published a collection of Latin letters and orations of Grevius, with his Eloge, by P. Burmann.