that when in his stirring speeches he spoke of his home as no place
for him to visit, while his mother was weeping and in despair, he was
influenced by her adjurations to avenge his brother, and not by any
craven warnings against sharing his fate. However this may have been,
no timid influences could be traced in the fiery passion of his first
speeches. [Sidenote: Story of the means by which he modulated his
voice when speaking.] He was, in fact, so carried away by his feelings
that he had to resort to a curious device in order to keep his voice
under control. A man with a musical instrument used, it is said, to
stand near him, and warn him by a note at times if he was pitching his
voice too high or too low. It was now that he told his stories of the
flogging of the magistrate of Teanum and the murder of the Venusian
herdsman, and we can imagine how they would incense his hearers
against the nobles. Against one of them, Octavius, he specially
directed a law, making it illegal for any magistrate previously
deposed by the people to be elected to office; but this, at Cornelia's
suggestion it is said, he withdrew. Another law also had special
reference to the fate of Tiberius. It made illegal the trial of any
citizen for an offence which involved the loss of his civic rights
without the consent of the people. [Sidenote: Caius procures the
banishment of Popillius Laenas.] This law, if in force, would have
prevented the ferocity with which Popillius Laenas hunted down the
partisans of Tiberius; and Caius followed it up according to the
oration De Domo, by procuring against Popillius a sentence of
outlawry. One of the fragments from his speeches was probably spoken
at this time. In it he told the people that they now had the chance
they had so long and so passionately desired; and that, if they did
not avail themselves of it, they would lay themselves open to the
charge of caprice or of ungoverned temper. Popillius anticipated the
sentence by voluntary retirement from Rome.