XXI. The Senate, under present circumstances, endeavoured to soothe the people; they made no opposition to the distribution of the public land, and they allowed the people to elect another commissioner in place of Tiberius. Having come to a vote, they elected Publius Crassus[81] a relation of Gracchus, for his daughter Licinia was the wife of Caius Gracchus. Cornelius Nepos,[82] indeed, says that Caius did not marry the daughter of Crassus, but the daughter of Brutus[83] who triumphed over the Lusitanians: however, the majority of writers state the matter as I have done. Now, as the people were sore about the death of Tiberius, and were manifestly waiting for an opportunity to be revenged, and Nasica[84] was threatened with prosecutions, the Senate, fearing for his safety, made a decree for sending him to Asia, though they had nothing for him to do there. For when men met Nasica they did not conceal their hostility, but broke out into violence, and abused him wherever they fell in with him, calling him accursed, and tyrant, who had stained with the blood of an inviolable and sacred functionary the most sacred and revered of all the holy places in the city. Accordingly, Nasica left Italy, though bound by the most sacred functions, for he was Pontifex Maximus; and, rambling about despised from place to place, he died no long time after in the neighbourhood of Pergamum. It is no wonder if Nasica was so much hated by the people, when even Scipio Africanus, whom the Romans considered inferior to no man in integrity, and loved as well as any, narrowly escaped losing the popular favour, because, on receiving the news of the death of Tiberius, at Numantia, he exclaimed in the verse of Homer, So perish[85] all who do the like again. Subsequently, when Caius and Fulvius asked him, before an assembly of the people, what he thought of the death of Tiberius, he showed by his answer that he was not pleased with the measures of Tiberius. This made the people interrupt him with their shouts when he was speaking, as they had never done before; and Scipio was so far transported with passion as to break out into invectives against them. But of this I have spoken more particularly in the Life of Scipio.[86] LIFE OF CAIUS GRACCHUS.