Scipio was laying siege to Numantia, when he heard the news of his brother-in-law’s death; and he expressed his approval of it. After his return to Rome, Carbo called upon him to declare whether he looked upon the death of Gracchus as just; but he shuffled out of this, saying, that it was just, if Gracchus had meant to make himself king. This was mere senseless slander, and thus men’s minds were generally embittered against Scipio. The oligarchs themselves were divided: not every one who had clamoured for Gracchus’ blood, was therefore Scipio’s friend; but they all wanted him, and it flattered his vanity to consider himself also as the protector of the Latins and of the allies. Tiberius’ death had by no means brought the dispute to a decision; far from it, it was carried on with unabated violence. Scipio intended to speak in the assembly of the people against the enforcing of the Sempronian law, which was never repealed; as we may see from the original tables of the _Lex Thoria_ (640-50), and the few fragments of a later agrarian law. The evening before the day on which he was to address the people, he had betaken himself to rest at an early hour, to think over his speech; but in the morning he was found dead in his bed. This sudden death now raised the suspicion of his having been murdered; yet, strange to say, no inquiry was made, although it would have been the interest of the ruling party to have had one. The result might, however, perhaps have turned against this very party;[76] for instance, against Q. Pompeius, or Metellus: people even went so far as to charge Scipio’s wife, Sempronia, a sister of the Gracchi, with having got him out of the world by poison. Yet poisoned he could not have been, by all accounts; for as his corpse was borne upon an open bier, the symptoms of it would have shown themselves. If he died a violent death, he must have been strangled.