Free From the Gracchi to Nero: A History of Rome from 133 B.C. to A.D. 68 by H. H. Scullard Page A

course of the summer the tribunician elections for the next year drew near, and Tiberius decided to stand for a second tribunate: his motive may have been to remain in office in order to safeguard the working of his agrarian bill, but his intention must have suggested to his opponents a dangerous personal ambition. Re-election was not illegal, but the last important case belonged to a period two hundred years earlier when the function of the tribunate was very different. 14 As harvest time prevented some country-voters from coming to Rome, Tiberius may have broadened his programme to appeal to more of the city population. 15 At first a dispute over which tribune should preside at the elections led to an adjournment. Next day Tiberius and his supporters gathered on the Capitol, where the Assembly met; during a discussion about his eligibility to stand a second time, he gave some signal which perhaps accidentally led to a brawl: the meeting broke up and the other tribunes fled. In the Senate, which met in the Temple of Fides, P. Mucius Scaevola was asked to save the State and destroy the tyrant, to which he replied that he would neither act illegally nor recognize any illegal act by the People. This was no answer for the Pontifex Maximus, P. Scipio Nasica, who resorted to force. Leading out those senators who would follow him, and joined on the way by other opponents of Gracchus, he rushed to the assembly where they clubbed and stoned to death three hundred Gracchans. Tiberius himself was struck down near the door of the Temple of Juppiter Capitolinus, close by the statues of the Kings. All the bodies were thrown into the Tiber by night. After nearly four hundred years blood had again been shed in Rome in civil strife. 16
    4.  THE IMPORTANCE OF GRACCHUS’ ATTEMPT
    This unjustified recourse to force by part of the Senate was the result of much provocation by Tiberius. He had disregarded their customary prior right of discussing legislation, and he had interfered in finance and foreign affairs which he claimed should be handled by the People. 16a Apart from any slight to their order, many senators much have had genuine misgivings about such conduct. True the Roman People was theoretically sovereign, but the Roman People could not be equated with the urban mob that thronged the assembly in Rome. This was becoming increasingly irresponsible and unrepresentative of the needs of the people as a whole. Further, since it clearly lacked the knowledge or skill to take over from the Senate the transacting of the complicatedbusiness of finance and foreign relations, Tiberius was unwise to encourage it to intervene on specific points. In thus transgressing traditional observance, he had not broken the law, but he had shown undue hastiness and folly.
    His attitude to the tribunate was even more disquieting. Neither the deposition of Octavius nor his own attempt at re-election may have been formally illegal, but these acts must have suggested to the prudent some possibilities which may have escaped the consideration of the over-zealous reformer. The original function of the tribunes had been to protect the people against patrician domination, but this need had long passed and they had become useful agents for the nobility, often using their veto to check the popular assemblies. In urging the People to depose Octavius while he was still in office, on the ground perhaps that he was blocking the People’s wishes, Tiberius was threatening to turn the tribunes into agents of the People’s will, whereas constitutionally legislation could only result when magistrates co-operated with the People. To turn the tribunes into a mouthpiece of the People and to make their veto capable of being swept aside, would be to give the Concilium Plebis greater responsibility than it could properly wield. When, in addition, Tiberius sought reelection, the possibility of prolonged tribunates would open the way to demagogy: the result would not be democracy on the