bought friends enough to aid him at
this time.[15] The same spirit of lawlessness which he himself had invoked
in the passing of his law, was in turn made use of by his enemies to
crush him. Having been absent from Rome while performing his duties as
commissioner, he now returned as a candidate for re-election to the
tribunate, a thing in itself contrary to law, and in the struggle which
arose over his re-election, was slain a little more than six months after
his appointment[16] to membership in the collegium.

_Uncertainty as to the Details of the Lex Sempronia._ We are very
imperfectly informed upon many points in Tiberius' agrarian law. In the
first place, the question arises, were those persons holding less than
500 jugera at the time of its enactment given their lands as _bona fide_
private property with the privilege of making up the deficiency? If not,
then the law, instead of punishing, would seem to reward violation of its
tenets, and he who had with boldness appropriated the greatest quantity
of domain land would now be an object of envy to his more honest but less
fortunate neighbors.

Secondly, what arrangement was made as to the buildings and improvements
already upon the land? Were these handed over to the new owners without any
payment on their part? This would work great inequality in the value of
allotments made, and yet we cannot see where the poor man was to obtain
the money to pay for these. Then again, what was to become of the numerous
slaves which had hitherto carried on the agriculture now destined to be
performed by small holders? Their masters would have no further use for
them and would consequently swell the lists of freedmen in order to avoid
the expense of feeding them. This law was passed in the midst of the
Sicilian slave war and Tiberius Gracchus would surely not have neglected
to make some provision to meet this exigency. The law as it stands in its
imperfect condition seems to be the work of an ignorant, unprincipled
political charlatan, but we are convinced Tiberius was not that. Moreover,
we know that he had the help of one of Rome's most able lawyers, Publius
Mucius Scaevola, and the advice of his father-in-law, Appius Claudius,
who was something of a statesman. We are therefore convinced that some
conditions which were to meet these obstacles were enacted. We must admit,
however, that it is a little surprising that no fragment of such conditions
has ever reached us in the literatu