Caius had meditated, it may be, many colonies, but, according to Plutarch, had at this time only actually settled two.  Drusus proposed to plant twelve, each of 3,000 citizens.  Caius had superintended the settlement himself, and employed his friends.  With virtuous self-denial Drusus washed his hands of all such patronage.  Caius had imposed a yearly tax on those to whom he gave land; Drusus proposed to remit it.  Caius had wished to give the Latins the franchise; Drusus replied by a comparatively ridiculous favour, which, however, might appeal more directly to the lower class of Latins.  No Latin, he said, should be liable to be flogged even when serving in the army.  Drusus could afford to be liberal.  His colonies were sham colonies.  His remission of the vectigal was a thin-coated poison.  His promise to the Latins was at best a cheap one, and was not carried out.  But none the less his treachery or imbecility served its purpose, and the greedier and baser of the partisans of Gracchus began to look coldly on their leader. [Sidenote:  Caius rejected for the tribunate.] It is stated, indeed, that on his standing for the tribunate a third time he was rejected by fraud, his colleagues having made a false return of the names of the candidates.  In any case he was not elected, and one of the consuls for the year 121 was L. Opimius, his mortal foe.

The end was drawing near.  Sadly Caius must have recognised that his presentiments would soon be fulfilled, and that he must share his brother’s fate. [Sidenote:  Preparations for civil strife.] His foes proposed to repeal the law for the settlement of Junonia, and, according to Plutarch, others of his laws also.  Warned by the past, his friends armed.  Men came disguised as reapers to defend him.  It is likely enough that they were really reapers, who would remember why Tiberius lost his life, and that their support would have saved him.  Fulvius was addressing the people about the law when Caius, attended by some of his partisans, came to the Capitol.  He did not join the meeting, but began walking up and down under a colonnade to wait its issue.  Here a man named Antyllus, who was sacrificing, probably in behalf of Opimius the consul, either insulted the Gracchans and was stabbed by them, or caught hold of Caius’s hand, or by some other familiarity or importunity provoked some hasty word or gesture from him, upon which he was stabbed by a servant.  As soon as the deed was done the people ran away, and Caius hastened to the assembly to explain the affair.  But it began to rain heavily; and for this, and because of the murder, the assembly was adjourned.  Caius and Fulvius went home; but that night the people thronged the Forum, expecting that some violence would be done at daybreak.  Opimius was not slow to seize the opportunity.  He convoked the Senate, and occupied the temple of Castor and Pollux with armed men.  The body of Antyllus was placed on a bier, and with loud lamentations borne along the Forum; and as it