The dissatisfaction of the supporters of the law concurred with the resistance of its opponents in preventing its execution or at least greatly embarrassing the collegium. The senate refused to grant the customary outfit to which the commissioners[13] were entitled. They proceeded without it. Then the landowners denied that they occupied any of the public land, or else asked such enormous indemnities as to render the recovery impossible without violence. This roused opposition. The _ager publicus_ had never been surveyed, private boundaries had in many cases been obliterated, and, except where natural boundaries marked the limit of the domain land, it was impossible to ascertain what was _ager publicus_ and what _ager privatus_. To avoid this difficulty the commission adopted the just but hazardous expediency of throwing the burden of proof upon the occupier. He was summoned before their tribunal and, unless he could establish his boundaries or prove that the land in question had never been a part of the domain land, it was declared _ager publicus_ and confiscated.[14] On the other hand the newly made proprietors were contending with one another, if not with the commissioners. The Italians were, in some cases, despoiled instead of relieved by the law. The complaints of those turned out of their estates to make room for the clamorous swarms from the city, drowned the thanks of such as obtained a portion of the lands. Not even with the wealth of Attalus had Tiberius bought friends enough to aid him at this time.[15] The same spirit of lawlessness which he himself had invoked in the passing of his law, was in turn made use of by his enemies to crush him. Having been absent from Rome while performing his duties as commissioner, he now returned as a candidate for re-election to the tribunate, a thing in itself contrary to law, and in the struggle which arose over his re-election, was slain a little more than six months after his appointment[16] to membership in the collegium. _Uncertainty as to the Details of the Lex Sempronia._ We are very imperfectly informed upon many points in Tiberius' agrarian law. In the first place, the question arises, were those persons holding less than 500 jugera at the time of its enactment given their lands as _bona fide_ private property with the privilege of making up the deficiency? If not, then the law, instead of punishing, would seem to reward violation of its tenets, and he who had with boldness appropriated the greatest quantity of domain land would now be an object of envy to his more honest but less fortunate neighbors.