The opportunity was presented when the Roman people came into the unexpected inheritance of Attalus the Third, king of Pergamon. The testament was brought to Rome by Eudemus the Pergamene, whose first business was with the senate. But, when Eudemus arrived in the city, he saw a state of things which must have made him doubt whether the senate was any longer the true director of the State. It sat passive and sullen, while an energetic _prostates_ of the Greek type was doing what he liked with the land of Italy. No sane ambassador could have refused to neglect Gracchus, and it is practically certain that Eudemus approached him. This fact we may believe, even if we do not accept the version that the envoy had taken the precaution of bringing in his luggage a purple robe and a diadem, as symbols that might be necessary for a fitting recognition of Tiberius's future position.[380] It is also possible that suspicion of the rule of senators and capitalists may also have prompted the Greek to attempt to discover whether a more tolerable settlement might not be gained for his country through the leader of the popular party.[381] We cannot say whether Gracchus ever contemplated a policy with respect to the province as a whole. His mind was probably full of his immediate needs. He saw in the treasures of Attalus more than an equivalent for the revenues enclosed in the locked Aerarium, and he announced his intention of promulgating a plebiscite that the money left by the king should be assigned to the settlers provided for by his agrarian law.[382] It is possible that he contemplated the application of the future revenues of the kingdom of Pergamon to this or some similar purpose; and it was perhaps partly for this reason, partly in answer to the objection that the treasure could not be appropriated without a senatorial decree, that he announced the novel doctrine that it was no business of the senate to decide the fate of the cities which had belonged to the Attalid monarchy, and that he himself would prepare for the people a measure dealing with this question.[383]