Page:Roman Constitutional History, 753-44 B.C..djvu/177

Rh reëlection to the tribunate. To this end he promised further reforms, and is said to have prepared various popular measures. He found it necessary to defend the removal of Octavius before the people, and declared the welfare and will of the people to be the supreme law. The aristocrats opposed his reëlection to the utmost. On the first day set for the election no choice resulted. On the second the greatest excitement prevailed, a tumult arose, and a mob of senators headed by Publius Scipio Nasica Serapion murdered Gracchus on the slope of the Capitol, with three hundred of his followers. The next night the bodies were thrown into the Tiber. In three secessions and during struggles lasting for more than two centuries, Rome had never seen such a day.

The senate declared that Tiberius Gracchus had wished to secure royal power and had justly been killed. It charged the consuls for 132, Publius Popillius Laenas and Publius Rupilius, with the duty of punishing his adherents. Many were banished, others were executed, while others fled. Nasica, on the other hand, was afterward made chief pontiff (pontifex maximus). The majority of the moderate men, like Scaevola and Laelius, either took part in, or approved, these proceedings.

Political Consequences. — Tiberius Gracchus was a patriotic man, but no politician. It was inevitable that he should bring his agrarian bill before the people without the sanction of the senate, and he followed in this the precedent of the agrarian law of Flaminius and several subsequent enactments. But it was not necessary to carry the measure within one year. If it were, he should have secured the election of a harmonious tribunician college. Though he had failed to do this, he lost his self-control because of the opposition of a colleague, and was ready to override all constitutional forms. The removal of Octavius was a flagrant