remember that they had been officially denounced as public enemies by the senate. There was no haunting sense of an inviolable wrong inflicted on the tribunate, for Caius Gracchus had not been tribune when he fell; there was no memory, half bitter, half grotesque, of indiscriminate slaughter dealt by a mob of infuriated senators, for this latter and greater _emeute_ had been suppressed by the regular forces of the State, led by its highest magistrate. The position of the government was more secure, the conscience of the people more easy than it had been after the massacre of Tiberius Gracchus and his followers. This feeling of security on the part of the government, and of acquiescence on that of the people, was soon put to the test by the prosecution of the ex-consul Lucius Opimius. His impeachment before the people by the tribune Decius[753] raised the vital question whether the novel powers which he had exercised in crushing Gracchus and his adherents, could be justified on the ground that they were the necessary, and in fact the only, means of maintaining public security. It was practically a question whether a new form of martial law should be admitted to recognition by the highest organ of the State, the voice of the sovereign people itself; and the discussion was rendered all the more piquant by the fact that that very sovereign was reminded that it had lately sanctioned an ordinance which forbade a capital penalty to be pronounced against a Roman citizen except by consent of the people, The arguments used on either side were of the most abstract and far-reaching character.[754] In answer to Decius's objection that the proceedings of Opimius were an obvious contravention of statute law, and that the most wanton criminality did not justify death without trial, the view, never unwelcome to the Roman mind, that there was a higher justice than law, was advanced by the champions of the accused. It was maintained that an ultimate right of self-defence was as necessary to a state as to an individual. The man who attempted to overturn the foundations of society was a public enemy beyond the pale of law; the man who resisted his efforts by every means that lay to hand was merely fulfilling the duty to his country which was incumbent on a citizen and a magistrate. If this view were accepted, the complex issue at law resolved itself into a simple question of fact. Had the leader and the party that had been crushed shown by their actions that they were overt enemies of the State? The majority which acquitted Opimius practically decided that Gracchus and his adherents had been rendered outlaws by their deeds. The sentiment of the moment had been cleverly stirred by the nature of the issue which was put before them. Had the voters been Gracchans at heart, they would probably have paid but little attention to these unusual appeals to the fundamental principles of political life, and would have shown themselves supporters