league, and turned to
the assembled multitude with the question whether a tribune of the
people, who acted in opposition to the people, had not forfeited his
office; and the assembly, long accustomed to assent to all proposals
presented to it, and for the most part composed of the agricultural
proletariate which had flocked in from the country and was
personally interested in the carrying of the law, gave almost
unanimously an affirmative answer. Marcus Octavius was at the bidding
of Gracchus removed by the lictors from the tribunes' bench; and then,
amidst universal rejoicing, the agrarian law was carried and the
first allotment-commissioners were nominated. The votes fell on the
author of the law along with his brother Gaius, who was only twenty
years of age, and his father-in-law Appius Claudius. Such a family-
selection augmented the exasperation of the aristocracy. When the
new magistrates applied as usual to the senate to obtain the moneys
for their equipment and for their daily allowance, the former was
refused, and a daily allowance was assigned to them of 24 -asses-
(1 shilling). The feud spread daily more and more, and became
more envenomed and more personal. The difficult and intricate task
of defining, resuming, and distributing the domains carried strife
into every burgess-community, and even into the allied Italian towns.

Further Plans of Gracchus

The aristocracy made no secret that, while they would acquiesce perhaps
in the law because they could not do otherwise, the officious legislator
should never escape their vengeance; and the announcement of Quintus
Pompeius, that he would impeach Gracchus on the very day of his
resigning his tribunate, was far from being the worst of the threats
thrown out against the tribune. Gracchus believed, probably with
reason, that his personal safety was imperilled, and no longer
appeared in the Forum without a retinue of 3000 or 4000 men--a step
which drew down on him bitter expressions in the senate, even from
Metellus who was not averse to reform in itself. Altogether, if
he had expected to reach the goal by the carrying of his agrarian
law, he had now to learn that he was only at the starting-point.
The "people" owed him gratitude; but he was a lost man, if he had
no farther protection than this gratitude of the people, if he did
not continue indispensable to them and did not constantly attach
to himself fresh interests and hopes by means of other and more