were carried with a higher hand.  Gracchus seemed to himself to have reached the point when he must either wholly renounce his reform or begin a revolution.  He chose the latter course; for he came before the burgesses with the declaration that either he or Octavius must retire from the college, and suggested to Octavius that a vote of the burgesses should be taken as to which of them they wished to dismiss.  Octavius naturally refused to consent to this strange challenge; the -intercessio- existed for the very purpose of giving scope to such differences of opinion among colleagues.  Then Gracchus broke off the discussion with his colleague, 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