e way
for them; and they, breaking up the benches, armed themselves with
sticks, and rushed upon Tiberius and his friends. The tribune fled to
the Temple of Jupiter, but the door had been barred by the priests, and
in his flight he fell over a prostrate body. As he was rising he
received the first blow from one of his colleagues, and was quickly
dispatched. Upward of 300 of his partisans were slain on the same day.
Their bodies were thrown into the Tiber. This was the first blood shed
at Rome in civil strife since the expulsion of the kings.

Notwithstanding their victory, the Nobles did not venture to propose the
repeal of the Agrarian Law, and a new Commissioner was chosen in the
place of Tiberius. The popular indignation was so strongly excited
against Scipio Nasica that his friends advised him to withdraw from
Italy, though he was Pontifex Maximus, and therefore ought not to have
quitted the country. He died shortly afterward at Pergamus.

All eyes were now turned to Scipio Africanus, who returned to Rome in
B.C. 132. When Scipio received at Numantia the news of the death of
Tiberius, he is reported to have exclaimed in the verse of Homer[62]--

"So perish all who do the like again."

The people may have thought that the brother-in-law of Tiberius would
show some sympathy with his reforms and some sorrow for his fate. They
were, however, soon undeceived. Being asked in the Assembly of the
Tribes by C. Papirius Carbo, the Tribune, who was now the leader of the
popular party, what he thought of the death of Tiberius, he boldly
replied that "he was justly slain." The people, who had probably
expected a different answer, loudly expressed their disapprobation;
whereupon Scipio, turning to the mob, bade them be silent, since Italy
was only their step-mother.[63] The people did not forget this insult;
but such was his influence and authority that the Nobility were able to
defeat the bill of Carbo by which the Tribunes might be re-elected as
often as the people pleased. Scipio was now regarded as the acknowledged
leader of the Nobility, and the latter resolved to avail themselves of
his powerful aid to prevent the Agrarian Law of Tiberius from being
carried into effect. The Italians were alarmed at the prospect of losing
some of their lands, and Scipio skillfully availed himself of the
circumstance to propose in the Senate (B.C. 129) that all disputes
respecting the lands of the Italians should be taken out of the ha