pants should have compensation. But
they had no right to the lands themselves. Gracchus persisted that the
_ager publicus_ belonged to the people, and that the race of yeomen, for
whose protection the law had been originally passed, must be
re-established on their farms. No form of property gives to its owners
so much consequence as land, and there is no point on which in every
country an aristocracy is more sensitive. The large owners protested
that they had purchased their interests on the faith that the law was
obsolete. They had planted and built and watered with the sanction of
the government, and to call their titles in question was to shake the
foundations of society. The popular party pointed to the statute. The
monopolists were entitled in justice to less than was offered them. They
had no right to a compensation at all. Political passion awoke again
after the sleep of a century. The oligarchy had doubtless connived at
the accumulations. The suppression of the small holdings favored their
supremacy, and placed the elections more completely in their control.
Their military successes had given them so long a tenure of power that
they had believed it to be theirs in perpetuity; and the new sedition,
as they called it, threatened at once their privileges and their
fortunes. The quarrel assumed the familiar form of a struggle between
the rich and the poor, and at such times the mob of voters becomes less
easy to corrupt. They go with their order, as the prospect of larger
gain makes them indifferent to immediate bribes. It became clear that
the majority of the citizens would support Tiberius Gracchus, but the
constitutional forms of opposition might still be resorted to. Octavius
Caecina, another of the tribunes, had himself large interests in the land
question. He was the people's magistrate, one of the body appointed
especially to defend their rights, but he went over to the Senate, and,
using a power which undoubtedly belonged to him, he forbade the vote to
be taken.

There was no precedent for the removal of either consul, praetor, or
tribune, except under circumstances very different from any which could
as yet be said to have arisen. The magistrates held office for a year
only, and the power of veto had been allowed them expressly to secure
time for deliberation and to prevent passionate legislation. But
Gracchus was young and enthusiastic. Precedent or no precedent, the
citizens were omnipotent, he invited th