Meanwhile the proceedings in the Area Capitolii had been becoming somewhat less turbulent. The turmoil had quieted down with the exclusion of the more violent members of the opposition. Gracchus had called a Contio, for the purpose, it was said, of encouraging his supporters and asserting his own constancy and defiance of senatorial authority. The gathering had become a mere partisan mass meeting, such as had often been seen in the course of the current year, and the herald was crying "Silence," [420] when suddenly the men on the outskirts of the throng fell back to right and left. A long line of senators had been seen hastening up the hill. A deputation from the fathers had come. That must have been the first impression: and the crowd fell back before its masters. But in a moment it was seen that the masters had come to chastise, not to plead. With set faces and blazing eyes Nasica and his following threw themselves on the yielding mass. The unarmed senators snatched at the first weapons that lay to hand, the fragments of the shattered furniture of the meeting, severed planks and legs of benches, while their retinue pressed on with clubs and sticks. The whole column made straight for Tiberius and his improvised body-guard. Resistance was hopeless, and the tribune and his friends turned to flee. But the idea of restoring order occupied but a small place in the minds of the maddened senators, The accumulated bitterness of a year found its outlet in one moment of glorious vengeance. The fathers were behaving like a Greek street mob of the lowest type which had turned against an oppressive oligarchy. They were clubbing the Gracchans to death. Tiberius was in flight when some one seized his toga. He slipped it off and fled, clad only in his tunic, when he stumbled over a prostrate body and fell. As he rose, a rain of blows descended on his head.[421] The man who was seen to strike the first blow is said to have been Publius Saturius, one of his own colleagues. The glory of his death was vehemently disputed; one Rufus, since he could not claim the first blow, is said to have boasted of being the author of the second. Tiberius is said to have fallen by the very doors of the Capitoline temple, not far from the statues of the Kings.[422] The number of his adherents that perished was over three hundred, and it was noted that not one of these was slain by the sword.[423] Their bodies were thrown into the Tiber--not by the mob but by the magistrates; the hand of an aedile committed that of Tiberius to the stream.[424]