of the state and were annually elected by the assembly of the people, was entrusted with the work of resumption and distribution; to which was afterwards added the important and difficult function of legally settling what was domain-land and what was private property.  The distribution was accordingly designed to go on for an indefinite period until the Italian domains which were very extensive and difficult of adjustment should be regulated.  The new features in the Sempronian agrarian law, as compared with the Licinio-Sextian, were, first, the clause in favour of the hereditary possessors; secondly, the leasehold and inalienable tenure proposed for the new allotments; thirdly and especially, the regulated and permanent executive, the want of which under the older law had been the chief reason why it had remained without lasting practical application.

War was thus declared against the great landholders, who now, as three centuries ago, found substantially their organ in the senate; and once more, after a long interval, a single magistrate stood forth in earnest opposition to the aristocratic government.  It took up the conflict in the mode—­sanctioned by use and wont for such cases—­of paralyzing the excesses of the magistrates by means of the magistracy itself.(31) A colleague of Gracchus, Marcus Octavius, a resolute man who was seriously persuaded of the objectionable character of the proposed domain law, interposed his veto when it was about to be put to the vote; a step, the constitutional effect of which was to set aside the proposal.  Gracchus in his turn suspended the business of the state and the administration of justice, and placed his seal on the public chest; the government acquiesced—­it was inconvenient, but the year would draw to an end.  Gracchus, in perplexity, brought his law to the vote a second time.  Octavius of course repeated his -veto-; and to the urgent entreaty of his colleague and former friend, that he would not obstruct the salvation of Italy, he might reply that on that very question, as to how Italy could be saved, opinions differed, but that his constitutional right to use his veto against the proposal of his colleague was beyond all doubt.  The senate now made an attempt to open up to Gracchus a tolerable retreat; two consulars challenged him to discuss the matter further in the senate house, and the tribune entered into the scheme with zeal.  He sought to construe this proposal as implying that the senate had conceded the principle of distributing the domain-land; but neither was this implied in it, nor was the senate at all disposed to yield in the matter; the discussions ended without any result.  Constitutional means were exhausted.  In earlier times under such circumstances men were not indisposed to let the proposal go to sleep for the current year, and to take it up again in each succeeding one, till the earnestness of the demand and the pressure of public opinion overbore resistance.  Now things