Page:The Referendum and the Recall Among the Ancient Romans (Abbott, 1915, hvd.32044080048069).pdf/13

Rh voters in attendance, perhaps several thousand in number. The trials of magistrates at the end of their terms of office were conducted before tribunals of the same sort.

Here we see, then, two independent lines of political tradition, under one of which the precedent has been set of punishing for official misconduct, at the end of his term of office, a magistrate with civil functions; under the other an official, whose duties are largely military, may be deposed from office. Only the fires of revolution were needed to weld these two lines into one and establish the principle of recall for any official in political grounds. That point was reached under the stress of the agitation for economic reform in the tribunate of Tiberius Gracchus in 133 That great tribune had proposed a bill which provided for the resumption by the state of certain public lands, occupied by private citizens, and their assignment in homestead lots to the needy. The measure was bitterly opposed by the well-to-do, and their opposition found expression in the attitude of Gracchus's colleague, Octavius, who exercised his right as a tribune, vetoed the measure, and thus prevented the will of the people from becoming effective.

We have a lively account of the events which followed, in Plutarch's life of Tiberius: "But when the senate assembled, and could not bring the business to any result, through the prevalence of the rich faction, he then was driven to a course neither legal nor fair, and proposed to deprive Octavius of his tribuneship, it being impossible for him any other way to get the law brought to a vote. At first he addressed him publicly, with entreaties couched in the kindest terms, and taking him by his hands, besought him, that now, in the presence of all the people, he would take this opportunity to oblige them, in granting only that request which was in itself so just and reasonable, being but a small recompense in comparison with those many dangers and hardships which they had undergone for the public safety. Octavius, however, would by no means be persuaded to compliance; upon which Tiberius declared openly, that, seeing they two were united in the same office, and of equal authority, it would be a difficult matter to compose their difference on so weighty a matter without a civil war; and that the only remedy