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. It may have been so, or the law may have been so violated
as to be no more valid than the Licinian law, which, though never
abrogated, had never much force. [Sidenote: Tactics of the Senate.]
To fasten on some technical flaw in his procedure was precisely in
keeping with the rest of the acts of the opposition. But those writers
who accuse Tiberius of being guilty of another illegal act in standing
fail to observe the force of the fact, that it was not till the first