nts of the past. The assembly, composed chiefly of the
proletarians who had come from the country--the Comitia Tributa--voted
according to his proposal, and Octavius was removed by the lictors from
the tribune bench, and then the agrarian law was passed by acclamation.
The Commissioners chosen to confiscate and redistribute the lands were
Tiberius Gracchus, his brother Gaius, and his father-in-law Appius
Claudius, which family selection vastly increased the indignation of the
Senate, who threw every obstacle in the way.

(M943) The author of the law, fearing for his personal safety, no longer
appeared in the forum without a retinue of three or four thousand men,
another cause of bitter hatred on the part of the aristocracy. He also
sought to be re-elected tribune, but the Assembly broke up without a
choice. The next day the election terminated in the same manner, and it
was rumored in the city that Tiberius had deposed all the tribunes, and
was resolved to continue in office without re-election. A tumult,
originating with the Senate, was the result. A mob of senators rushed
through the streets, with fury in their eyes and clubs in their hands. The
people gave way, and Gracchus was slain on the slope of the capitol. The
Senate officially sanctioned the outrage, on the ground that Tiberius
meditated the usurpation of supreme power.

(M944) In regard to the author of this agrarian law, there is no doubt he
was patriotic in his intentions, was public-spirited, and wished to revive
the older and better days of the republic. I do not believe he
contemplated the usurpation of supreme power. I doubt if he was ambitious,
as Caesar was. But he did not comprehend the issues at stake, and the shock
he was giving to the constitution of his country. He was like Mirabeau,
that other aristocratic reformer, who voted for the spoliation of the
church property of France, on the ground, which that leveling
sentimentalist Rousseau had advanced, that the church property belonged to
the nation. But this plea, in both cases, was sophistical. It was,
doubtless, a great evil that the property of the State had fallen into the
hands of wealthy proprietors, as it was an evil that half the landed
property of France was in possession of the clergy. But, in both cases,
this property had been enjoyed uninterruptedly for centuries by the
possessors, and, to all intents and purposes, was _private_ property. And
this law of confiscation was therefore an e