At that time, then, while these things were being done at Numantia, the seditions of the Gracchi were being stirred up at Rome. Scipio, meanwhile, when after the destruction of Numantia he was settling the remaining nations of Spain in peace, asked a certain Thyresus, a Celtic chieftain, by what means the Numantine state had either earlier endured unconquered or later been overthrown. Thyresus answered: “Concord kept it unconquered; discord was its ruin.”
1 Igitur ea tempestate, cum haec apud Numantiam gesta sunt, apud Romam Gracchorum seditiones agitabantur. Scipio autem cum deleta Numantia ceteras Hispaniae gentes pace conponeret, Thyresum quendam, Celticum principem, consuluit, qua ope res Numantina aut prius inuicta durasset aut post fuisset euersa. Thyresus respondit: concordia inuicta, discordia exitio fuit.
The Romans took this as an example, as though it had been said to them and about them, since news was already reaching them of the seditions of the whole City in discord. With Carthage and Numantia destroyed, useful deliberation about foresight died among the Romans, and infamous contention born of ambition arose.
2 quod Romani tamquam sibi ac de se dictum exempli loco acceperunt, quippe quibus iam de seditionibus discordantis totius urbis nuntiabatur. Carthagine Numantiaque deleta moritur apud Romanos utilis de prouisione conlatio et oritur infamis de ambitione contentio.
Gracchus, tribune of the plebs, angry with the nobility because he had been marked out among the authors of the Numantine treaty, decreed that land hitherto held by private individuals should be divided among the people. When the tribune of the plebs Octavius opposed him, he stripped him of his power and gave him Minucius as a successor. For these reasons anger seized the senate, and arrogance the people.1
3 Gracchus tribunus plebi iratus nobilitati, cur inter auctores Numantini foederis notatus esset, agrum a priuatis eatenus possessum populo diuidi statuit. Octauio tribuno plebi obsistenti ademit imperium et successorem Minucium dedit. his causis senatum ira, populum superbia inuasit.
1Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, tribune of the plebs in 133 BC. As quaestor under Mancinus he had negotiated the Numantine treaty of 137 that the senate repudiated.
And just then, as it happened, Attalus, son of Eumenes, dying, had by his will ordered the Roman people to succeed as heir to the rule of Asia. Gracchus, seeking the favour of the people at a price, carried a law that the money which had been Attalus’s should be distributed to the people. As Nasica opposed this, Pompeius too pledged that he would prosecute Gracchus as soon as he had left office.
4 ac tunc forte Attalus, Eumenis filius, moriens testamento populum Romanum imperio Asiae succedere heredem iusserat. Gracchus gratiam populi pretio adpetens legem tulit, uti pecunia, quae fuisset Attali, populo distribueretur. obsistente Nasica etiam Pompeius spopondit se Gracchum, cum primum magistratu abisset, accusaturum.