[Sidenote:  Mean behaviour of the Senate.] The Senate showed its spite against the successful Tribune by petty annoyances, such as allowing him only about a shilling a day for his official expenditure, and, as rumour said, by the assassination of one of his friends.  But, while men like P. Scipio Nasica busied themselves with such miserable tactics, Tiberius brought forward another great proposal supplementary to his agrarian law. [Sidenote:  Proposal of Gracchus to distribute the legacy of Attalus.] Attalus, the last king of Pergamus, had just died and left his kingdom to Rome.  Gracchus wished to divide his treasures among the new settlers, and expressed some other intention of transferring the settlement of the country from the Senate to the people.  As to the second of these propositions it would be unsafe as well as unfair to Gracchus to pronounce judgment on it without a knowledge of its details.  The first was both just and wise and necessary, for previous experience had shown that the first temptation of a pauper land-owner was to sell his land to the rich, and, as the law of Gracchus forbade this, he was bound to give the settler a fair start on his farm. [Sidenote:  Retort of the Senate.] The Senate took fresh alarm, and it found vent again in characteristically mean devices.  One senator said that a diadem and a purple robe had been brought to Gracchus from Pergamus.  Another assailed him because men with torches escorted him home at night.  Another twitted him with the deposition of Octavius.  To this last attack, less contemptible than the others, he replied in a bold and able speech, which practically asserted that the spirit of the constitution was binding on a citizen, but that its letter under some circumstances was not.

[Sidenote:  Other intended reforms of Gracchus.] He was also engaged in meditating other important reforms, all directed against the Senate’s power.  Plutarch says that they comprised abridgment of the soldier’s term of service, an appeal to the people from the judices, and the equal partition between the Senate and equites of the privilege of serving as judices, which hitherto belonged only to the former.  According to Velleius, Tiberius also promised the franchise to all Italians south of the Rubicon and the Macra, which, if true, is another proof of his far-seeing statesmanship.  To carry out such extensive changes it was necessary to procure prolongation of office for himself, and he became a candidate for the next year’s tribunate. [Sidenote:  Gracchus stands again for the Tribunate.  His motives.] To say that considerations of personal safety dictated his candidature is a very easy and specious insinuation, but is nothing more.  It is indeed a good deal less, for it is utterly inconsistent with the other acts of an unselfish, dauntless career.  At election-time the first two tribes voted for Tiberius.  Then the aristocracy declared his candidature to be illegal because he could not hold office two years running.