*Death of Tiberius Gracchus.* To equip the allotments made to poor settlers, Tiberius proposed the appropriation of the treasure of King Attalus III of Pergamon, to which the Roman state had lately fallen heir. Here was a direct attack upon the Senate’s customary control of such matters. But before this proposal could be presented to the Comitia, the elections to the tribunate for 132 fell due. Tiberius determined to present himself for re-election in order to ensure the carrying out of his land law and to protect himself from prosecution on the ground of the unconstitutionality of some of his actions. Such a procedure was unusual, if not illegal, and the Senate determined to prevent it at any cost. The elections culminated in a riot in which Gracchus and three hundred adherents were massacred by the armed slaves and clients of the senators. Their bodies were thrown into the Tiber. A judicial commission appointed by the Senate sought out and punished the leading supporters of the murdered tribune. *The fate of the land commission.* However, the land law remained in force and the commission set to work. But in 129 B. C. the commissioners were deprived of their judicial powers, and, since they could no longer expropriate land, their activity practically ceased. Still, the Senate’s opponents were not utterly crushed. In 131 an attempt was made to legalize re-election to the tribunate, and although the proposal failed at first, a law to that effect was passed some time prior to 123 B. C. In the year 129 died Scipio Aemilianus, the conqueror of Carthage and Numantia, the foremost Roman of the day. Upon returning from Spain in 132 he had energetically taken sides with the Senate and had caused the land commissioners to lose their right of jurisdiction. Thereby he had become exceedingly unpopular with the Gracchan party, and when he died suddenly in his fifty-sixth year, there were not wanting those who accused his wife Sempronia, sister of Tiberius and Caius Gracchus, and others of their family, of being responsible for his decease. II. THE TRIBUNATE OF CAIUS GRACCHUS: 124–121 B. C. *Caius Gracchus, tribune, 123 B. C.* The return of Caius Gracchus from his quaestorship in Sardinia in 124 B. C. and his immediate election to the tribunate for the ensuing year heralded the opening of a new phase in the conflict between the Optimates and the Populares. Caius was a passionate orator, and a man of greater energy and more violent temperament than his brother. He entered office pledged to support the agrarian policy of Tiberius, but likewise determined to avenge the latter’s death and to wrest from the Senate its control of the government.