Ten young descendants of Marius and the Gracchi, barefooted and out at elbows, with one hand resting on the hip and the other gracefully curved above the head, stared at the traveller, the post-chaise, and the horses; to these were added about fifty little vagabonds from the Papal States, who earned a pittance by diving into the Tiber at high water from the bridge of St.
Ten minutes afterwards the baron entered his apartment, and Peppino stationed himself on the bench outside the door of the hotel, after having whispered something in the ear of one of the descendants of Marius and the Gracchi whom we noticed at the beginning of the chapter, who immediately ran down the road leading to the Capitol at his fullest speed.
All these preparations had collected a number of idlers round the door of Signor Pastrini's; the descendants of Marius and the Gracchi were also not wanting.
And do not let any one impugn this statement with the trite proverb that "He who builds on the people, builds on the mud," for this is true when a private citizen makes a foundation there, and persuades himself that the people will free him when he is oppressed by his enemies or by the magistrates; wherein he would find himself very often deceived, as happened to the
Gracchi in Rome and to Messer Giorgio Scali[+] in Florence.
While his wife--well, by those who knew her best she was endearingly termed "The Mother of the
Gracchi." Needless to state, this inexplicable will was a nine day's wonder; but the expectant public was disappointed in that no contest was made.
The
Gracchi, Agis, Cleomenes, and others of Plutarch's heroes, do not in the record of facts equal their own fame.
Like the
Gracchi, Trump sees that the economy of his time is increasingly winner-take-all and that for some of the "losers," no amount of hard work will get them ahead without fundamental change to the system.
Its intricate separation of powers among senators, consuls, tribunes, and other offices discouraged revolutionary innovation until the arrival of the
Gracchi and Marius upon the scene, and kept dilute the powers of the state while allowing the Roman people to prosper as no other had before them.
Abandoning the ancient principles of their forbearers, men like Marius, Sulla, and the
Gracchi brothers set dangerous new precedents that would start the Republic on the road to destruction and provide a stark warning about what can happen to a civilization that has lost its way.
Political violence started in Roman politics with the attempted land reform of the
Gracchi (133 and 123 BC).
(134) Francois Noel Babeuf (1760-1797), also known as "Gracchus" Babeuf after the radical Roman
Gracchi brothers, was a French socialist revolutionary who was inspired by the ideas of Rousseau.