ould be benefited by it were determined to support Tiberius at any
risk. He told them that "the wild beasts of Italy had their dens, and
holes, and hiding-places, while the men who fought and bled in defense
of Italy wandered about with their wives and children without a spot of
ground to rest upon." It was evident that the law would be carried, and
the landowners therefore resorted to the only means left to them. They
persuaded M. Octavius, one of the Tribunes, to put his veto upon the
measure of his colleague. This was a fatal and unexpected obstacle. In
vain did Tiberius implore Octavius to withdraw his veto. The contest
between the Tribunes continued for many days. Tiberius retaliated by
forbidding the magistrates to exercise any of their functions, and by
suspending, in fact, the entire administration of the government. But
Octavius remained firm, and Tiberius therefore determined to depose him
from his office. He summoned an Assembly of the People and put the
question to the vote. Seventeen out of the thirty-five tribes had
already voted for the deposition of Octavius, and the addition of one
tribe would reduce him to a private condition, when Tiberius stopped the
voting, anxious, at the last moment, to prevent the necessity of so
desperate a measure. Octavius, however, would not yield. "Complete what
you have begun," was his only answer to the entreaties of his colleague.
The eighteenth tribe voted, and Tiberius ordered him to be dragged from
the rostra. Octavius had only exercised his undoubted rights, and his
deposition was clearly a violation of the Roman constitution. This gave
the enemies of Gracchus the handle which they needed. They could now
justly charge him not only with revolutionary measures, but with
employing revolutionary means to carry them into effect.

The Agrarian Law was passed without farther opposition, and the three
commissioners elected to put it in force were Tiberius himself, his
father-in-law Appius Claudius, and his brother Caius, then a youth of
twenty, serving under P. Scipio at Numantia. About the same time news
arrived of the death of Attalus Philometor, king of Pergamus, who had
bequeathed his kingdom and treasures to the Republic. Tiberius therefore
proposed that these treasures should be distributed among the people who
had received assignments of lands, to enable them to stock their farms
and to assist them in their cultivation. He even went so far as to
threaten to deprive the