supremacy, and placed the elections more completely in their control.
Their military successes had given them so long a tenure of power that
they had believed it to be theirs in perpetuity; and the new sedition, as
they called it, threatened at once their privileges and their fortunes.
The quarrel assumed the familiar form of a struggle between the rich and
the poor, and at such times the mob of voters becomes less easy to
corrupt. They go with their order, as the prospect of larger gain makes
them indifferent to immediate bribes. It became clear that the majority of
the citizens would support Tiberius Gracchus, but the constitutional forms
of opposition might still be resorted to. Octavius Caecina, another of the
tribunes, had himself large interests in the land question. He was the
people's magistrate, one of the body appointed especially to defend their
rights, but he went over to the Senate, and, using a power which
undoubtedly belonged to him, he forbade the vote to be taken.

There was no precedent for the removal of either consul, praetor, or
tribune, except under circumstances very different from any which could as
yet be said to have arisen. The magistrates held office for a year only,
and the power of veto had been allowed them expressly to secure time for
deliberation and to prevent passionate legislation. But Gracchus was young
and enthusiastic. Precedent or no precedent, the citizens were omnipotent.
He invited them to declare his colleague deposed. They had warmed to the
fight, and complied. A more experienced statesman would have known that
established constitutional bulwarks cannot be swept away by a momentary
vote. He obtained his agrarian law. Three commissioners were appointed,
himself, his younger brother, and his father-in-law, Appius Claudius, to
carry it into effect; but the very names showed that he had alienated his
few supporters in the higher circles, and that a single family was now
contending against the united wealth and distinction of Rome. The issue
was only too certain. Popular enthusiasm is but a fire of straw. In a year