Note 681 — Chapter XI · THE STATE (B) STATE AND HISTORY

Plutarch and Appian describe the masses of humanity that moved in by all the roads of Italy to vote on Tiberius Gracchus’s land-bills. But this in itself shows that nothing of the sort had ever happened before; and immediately after his violence upon Octavius, Tiberius Gracchus saw downfall staring him in the face because the masses had streamed off home again and were not to be assembled a second time. In Cicero’s day a Comitia often consisted only in speeches by a few politicians, without participation by others; but never did it occur to a Roman to transfer the place of voting to the residence of the individual voter—nor even to the Italians when they were fighting for citizenship in 90 B.C. So strong was the feeling of the Polis.