Tiberius had seen military service and won distinction both by his bravery and prudence in Spain as aid to his brother-in-law, Scipio Æmilianus, who was the commander-in-chief. It was, therefore, not his illustrious birth alone, but individual merit also, which caused him to be elected tribune of the people in the year 133 B.C. As such he introduced a bill for the re-apportionment of the public lands and their distribution among the poorer citizens of Rome. Various explanations have been given for this action of Tiberius Gracchus. It has been said that he was instigated by others to introduce a measure which could not fail to arouse against him the strongest hostility of the rich proprietors of some of these lands. But from a statement in writing left by his brother Caius, it appears that the idea of the bill originated with Tiberius himself, and that its introduction sprang much more from a noble and generous impulse than from political ambition. Even to-day the traveller who traverses the silent and depopulated desert of the Roman Campagna, which is owned by a limited number of large proprietors and is left in an almost uncultivated state, is struck forcibly with the thought that the unwise and unjust distribution of the land has had much to do with the desolate and unproductive aspect of this district, which under judicious and scientific cultivation might yield rich harvests and contribute materially to the welfare of the inhabitants of Tuscany. The same thought struck Tiberius Gracchus as, on his departure for Spain, he travelled through Tuscany and found it almost a desert, or, at best, only rudely cultivated in some parts by barbarian and imported slaves. It was at that time that he first conceived the idea of bringing about a change--an idea which continued to haunt his mind until he was in a position to realize it. And in doing so he found a precedent for legislative action.