d he and his young brother Caius, and his
father-in-law Appius Claudius, were appointed as triumvers to see the
law carried out. Then the rich men followed their old plan of spreading
reports among the people that Tiberius wanted to make himself a king,
and had accepted a crown and purple robe from some foreign envoy. When
his year of office was coming to an end, he sought to be elected tribune
again, but the patricians said it was against the law. There was a
great tumult, in the course of which he put his hand to his head, either
to guard it from a blow or to beckon his friends. "He demands the
diadem," shouted his enemies, and there was a great struggle, in which
three hundred people were killed. Tiberius tried to take refuge in the
Temple of Jupiter, but the doors were closed against him; he stumbled,
was knocked down with a club, and killed.

However, the Sempronian law had been made, and the people wanted, of
course, to have it carried out, while the nobles wanted it to be a dead
letter. Scipio AEmilianus, the brother-in-law of the Gracchi, had been in
Spain all this time, but he had so much disapproved of Tiberius' doings
that he was said to have exclaimed, on hearing of his death, "So perish
all who do the like." But when he came home, he did so much to calm and
quiet matters, that there was a cry to make him Dictator, and let him
settle the whole matter. Young Caius Gracchus, who thought the cause
would thus be lost, tried to prevent the choice by fixing on him the
name of tyrant. To which Scipio calmly replied, "Rome's enemies may well
wish me dead, for they know that while I live Rome cannot perish."

When he went home, he shut himself into his room to prepare his
discourse for the next day, but in the morning he was found dead,
without a wound, though his slaves declared he had been murdered. Some
suspected his wife Sempronia, others even her mother Cornelia, but the
Senate would not have the matter enquired into. He left no child, and
the Africanus line of Cornelius ended with him.

Caius Gracchus was nine years younger than his brother, and was elected
tribune as soon as he was old enough. He was full of still greater
schemes than his brother. His mother besought him to be warned by his
brother's fate, but he was bent on his objects, and carried some of them
out. He had the Sempronian law reaffirmed, though he could not act on
it; but in the meantime he began a regular custom of having corn served
out to