Book 1
4.33
Very many others were swept out of existence in this sedition. Among them was that other tribune who was supposed to be the son of Gracchus, and who perished on that first day of his magistracy. Freedom, democracy, laws, reputation, official position, were no longer of any use to anybody, since even the tribunician office, which had been devised for the restraint of wrong-doers and the protection of the plebeians, and was sacred and inviolable, now committed such outrages and suffered such indignities. When the party of Saturninus was destroyed the Senate and people clamored for the recall of Metellus, but Publius Furius, a tribune who was not the son of a free citizen but of a freedman, boldly resisted them. Not even Metellus, the son of Metellus, who besought him in the presence of the people with tears in his eyes, and threw himself at his feet, could move him. From this spectacle the son ever afterward bore the name of Metellus Pius. The following year Furius was called to account for his obstinacy by the new tribune, Gaius Canuleius. The people did not wait Y.R. 655 for the argument, but tore Furius in pieces. Thus every B.C. 99 year some new deed of abomination was committed in the forum. Metellus was allowed to return, and it is said that a whole day was not sufficient for the greetings of those who went to meet him at the city gates. Such was the third civil strife (that of Saturninus) which succeeded those of the two Gracchi, and such results it brought to the Romans.
