Word: gracchi
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Comparisons of the fate of the family to Greek tragedy are commonplace, though the analogy comes just as close to the Romans. The Gracchi, two highborn brothers in the second century B.C. who scorned their fellow aristocrats and were elected tribunes to effect social good, were both assassinated. But when one thinks of the Kennedys, the Greeks come to mind--the Agamemnon family especially--because one feels that their disasters can only be the result of some terrible curse. It's all nonsense and superstition, of course. But this is what happens when "frail thoughts dally with false surmise" about...