But there was need of serious counsel. Gracchus did not mean to be a mere demagogue, coming before the people with a half-formed plan and stirring up an agitation which could end merely in some idle resolution. There were few to whom he could look for advice, but those few were of the best. Three venerable men, whose deeds and standing were even greater than their names, were ready with their support. There was the chief pontiff, P. Licinius Crassus Mucianus, the man who was said to combine in a supreme degree the four great blessings of wealth, birth, eloquence and legal lore;[325] there was the brother of Crassus, P. Mucius Scaevola,[326] the greatest lawyer of his age and already destined to the consulship for the following year; lastly there was Tiberius's father-in-law, the restless Appius, now eagerly awaiting the fulfilment of a cherished scheme by the man of his own choice.[327] Thus fortified, Tiberius Gracchus entered on his tribunate, and formulated the measure which was to leave large portions of the public domain open for distribution to the poor. In the popular gatherings with which he opened his campaign, he dwelt on the nature of the evils which he proposed to remedy. It was the interest of Italy, not merely of the Roman proletariate, that was at stake.[328] He pointed out how the Italian peasantry had dwindled in numbers, and how that portion of it which still survived had been reduced to a poverty that was irremediable by their own efforts. He showed that the slave gangs which worked the vast estates were a menace, not a help, to Rome. They could not be enlisted for service in the legions; their disaffection to their masters was notorious; their danger was being proved even now by the horrible condition of Sicily, the fate of its slave-owning landlords, the long, difficult and eventful war which had not even yet been brought to a close.[329] Sometimes the language of passion replaced that of reason in his harangues to the crowds that pressed round the Rostra. "The beasts that prowl about Italy have holes and lurking-places where they may make their beds. You who fight and die for Italy enjoy but the blessings of air and light. These alone are your heritage. Homeless, unsettled, you wander to and fro with your wives and children. Our generals are in the habit of inspiring their soldiers to the combat by exhorting them to repel the enemy in defence of their tombs and ancestral shrines. The appeal is idle and false. You cannot point to a paternal altar, you have no ancestral tomb. No! you fight and die to give wealth and luxury to others. You are called the masters of the world; yet there is no clod of earth that you can call your own." [330]