of his office. The first tribe voted against Octavius, on which Gracchus again attempted to persuade him to desist from opposition to the Agrarian law. Octavius still refused to yield, and the voting continued until seventeen tribes had voted against Octavius, and the vote of one tribe more, the number of tribes being thirty-five, would make a majority against him. Gracchus again appealed to Octavius, entreating him not to oppose a measure which would be most useful to Italy, nor attempt to prevent that on which the people had set their hearts, when as a tribune it was rather his duty to assent to the wishes of the people; and he urged him again not to be indifferent as to the result of the voting which would deprive him of his office. Octavius remained obstinate; the voting was continued, and he was deprived of his tribunate. Thus reduced to a private condition Octavius slunk away out of the crowd; or, according to Plutarch's more lively narrative, which is quite as probable, Tiberius ordered one of his freedmen to drag Octavius from the Rostra, for it would be consistent with the rest of his conduct that Octavius should refuse to acknowledge the legality of his deposition. The people at the same time made an assault on Octavius, the rich came to his help, and he was with some difficulty rescued from the mob and enabled to make his escape. One of Octavius' faithful slaves, who put himself in front of his master, had his eyes torn out.

This was the first direct step towards the overthrow of the Roman state. It was the first time that a Roman magistrate had been deprived of his office by a vote of the people. Careless writers, such as Cicero, one of the worst authorities for Roman history, speak of L. Tarquinius Collatinus in the first year of the republic being deprived of the consulship by his colleague L. Junius Brutus. But the old annalists, whom Livy and others followed, reported that Collatinus resigned his office, or, as the Romans expressed it, removed himself from the consulship (abdicavit se consulatu). The history of the first year of the republic may be as doubtful as most events in the early history of Rome, and it was a time of revolution, when all kinds of irregularities might happen; but those who attempted to write the annals of those times knew

that a consul could not be deprived of his office consistently with Roman notions, and accordingly they told the story in such a way as they conceived to be possible. The case of Octavius was the first example of the people assuming to deprive a man of the office, which had been solemnly given him for a fixed time, during which he was not responsible to any man in the exercise of his authority. The tribunes derived their power (potestas) and their inviolable character from the Lex Sacrata, the consecrated law, which was made on the Holy Mount, sanctified by the ceremonial of religion and confirmed after the overthrow of the Decemviral tyranny. This was the original of the tribunician power, which transmitted through successive colleges of tribunes the authority and sanctity of the office to those who were annually elected. The tribunes of each year were chosen by the people, but they were not the agents of those who chose them, nor did the tribunes derive their power from them. The tribunes by election stepped into an office which had been long established, and was as regularly constituted as the power by which the people elected them the tribunes were originally the protectors of the Plebs, and when their power had increased in the course of time, they were magistrates and not servants of the people; and their power only ended when it was transferred from them to their successors in conformity with the nature of their office. When Niebuhr says that the people had the right to take away a commission from a man to whom they had given it, and that it was an absurdity if in a republic this right is not maintained, he shows that he not only misunderstood the nature of the tribunician office, but the nature of the magisterial office in general. The appointment of a man to an office is quite distinct from the constitution of the office, which has either been created by an act done at some previous time, or the powers of the office have been the slow growth of ages. Where the sovereign power is in one man, he can of course confer and take away office at pleasure. Where the sovereign power is distributed among more than one, offices may be conferred and power delegated in such way that the office and power cannot be taken away at the mere will of him or of those who have conferred the office and delegated

the power; and in a form of government where a man is elected to an office for a fixed time by the vote of the people, it would be as great a practical absurdity that he should be deprived of his office by the vote of the people, as that when in the possession of his office he should affect to deprive the people of their power of electing his successor. Gracchus with the help of the popular vote destroyed a fundamental principle of the Roman constitution and of all constituted states, and he set an example of violence which could be used against himself.

CHAPTER XIII.

TIBERIUS SEMPRONIUS GRACCHUS.

B.C. 133.

Q. MUMMIUS, or Mucius as Plutarch names him, was elected tribune in the place of Octavius, and the law of Gracchus was carried. The three commissioners, or Triumviri, elected to execute the law were Tiberius Gracchus, his father-in-law Appius Claudius, and his younger brother Caius Gracchus. The election of the two brothers to such an important office together with the father-in-law of Tiberius proves that for the moment the party of Gracchus was all-powerful. As to Caius, Plutarch says that he was in Scipio's army before Numantia, and therefore he was elected in his absence. He was also a very young man, and not so fit for the office of land commissioner as many others. But the people were afraid that the law would not be executed unless the office of commissioner was altogether in the family of Gracchus. Tiberius was elated with his victory. Crowds accompanied him to his house to do honour to the man who was more than the founder of a state or of a single people: he was the regenerator of the Italian race. Those who had flocked to Rome to support Gracchus returned to the country well pleased with the defeat of their enemies; but the defeated party consoled themselves with the prospect of having their revenge when Tiberius again became a private man.

The Senate had the administration of the Roman state, and the control over all the expenditure. They showed their spite to Tiberius by even refusing to allow him a tent at the public cost, while he was discharging his office of commissioner,

and on the motion of P. Scipio Nasica, who was himself a large possessor of Public Land and an enemy of Gracchus, they gave him only about six sestertii a day for his expenses. The hostility between the nobles and the people was increased by an event which happened at this time. A friend of Tiberius died suddenly, and as suspicious marks appeared on his body, it was given out and the people believed that the man had been poisoned, and, as we must assume, because he was a friend of Tiberius. The story is very lamely told, nor is it explained why a man, whose name Plutarch has not taken the trouble to record, should have been selected as the victim of the vengeance of the nobility. But the rumour may be a truth, though the poisoning may not, and Tiberius took advantage of the popular belief to change his dress, as the Romans expressed it, or to appear in mourning, in order to excite the people still more. He presented his children to them, and begged they would protect them and their mother, for he thought that his life was no longer safe.

In this year died Attalus, the third of the name and the last king of Pergamum. He had no children, and he bequeathed his kingdom to the Romans. Attalus was rich, and his bequest was a favourable opportunity for Gracchus to ingratiate himself still more with the poor. He promulgated, that is in the Roman sense, he gave formal notice of a law for the distribution of the money of Attalus, and perhaps also the produce of the sale of his valuables among those who had assignments of land, in order to enable them to stock their little farms. He also declared that the Senate had no right to decide about the cities included within the kingdom of Attalus, but that he would bring the matter before the assembly of the people. Such an absurd proposal, if it was seriously made, must have disgusted every sensible man, for the Senate alone had the power of dealing with the gift of Attalus; and the organization of a new acquisition could not be effectually made by an ignorant popular assembly voting for a bill laid before them, which from the very nature of the case they must either accept altogether or reject, for discussion in a popular assembly is impossible. However, we know nothing more of this scheme than the intention of Gracchus.