holder cannot be removed, is an absurdity in a republic. The tribunes were merely commissioned to bring motions before the people, and whoever has given a commission can also take it away again. But what Gracchus did, was wrong in point of form. That he might swerve from the law as little as he could, he proposed to Octavius, first to put himself to the vote; and when Octavius refused, he went on with his motion. Seventeen tribes had already voted against Octavius, when Gracchus once more besought him to give up his opposition, or else to resign. But he would do neither, and was deposed. As he wished to make a scene, he would not leave the rostra, until Gracchus had him dragged down by force, thus awakening that feeling of disgust among the beholders, which the senate and the men in power were eager to call forth. The opponents of Tib. Gracchus had now the advantage of seeing him wrong in form. The agrarian law was carried, and a standing triumvirate was appointed to watch over the way in which it was kept. Tib. Gracchus, his brother, and his father-in-law, were named as triumvirs. From the _Somnium Scipionis_, we see that the _socii_ and _Latini_ attached themselves to P. Scipio, and we have even a great many statements which show that they, like the senate, were against the agrarian law: the reason for this we may make out by laying things together, there being several ways of accounting for it, one of which must undoubtedly be the true one. The Roman laws, unless it were expressly stipulated, did not apply to the allies, as we know from the usury laws, which are a case in point. Now it may be that the law of Licinius had said nothing about the _socii_ and _Latini_; so that if these had a _possessio_, they were not tied down to the maximum of five hundred _jugera_. Those who were rich, may have bought up in remote districts the _latifundia_ of former Roman possessors, and they would now have been disturbed by the Sempronian law. Certain it is, that the _socii_ and _Latini_ had always been granted a certain portion of the _ager publicus_: thus for instance the Campanians had a very large one, which they could only have acquired as allies; the Marsians had a share in the Apulian pastures. That Gracchus had meddled with these holdings, is not very likely, though it cannot be positively denied. It is more probable, on the other hand, that many places had been allowed, till further orders, to have the use of their _ager_ on condition of their paying tribute for it, though the right of ownership, which these had lost in war, had not been restored to them by the Roman people: if this indulgence were now taken away, it was hard upon them. They also got compensations, as we know for certain in the case of Carthage. Those who held on such tenures, had now the same interest as the wealthy Romans. However this may have been, the allies felt themselves aggrieved.--The plea then of defending the rights of