The deposition of Octavius[2274] requires especial consideration. In 136 the proconsular imperium had been abrogated, probably by a popular vote[2275]; but no instance of the abrogation of an actual magistracy had thus far occurred. Most scholars consider the act unconstitutional.[2276] It did indeed involve a sweeping departure from long-established custom; but in favor of its legality may be urged the fact that nearly all the powers ever possessed by the assembly are known to have been acquired in the way in which Tiberius was attempting to establish for it the right to remove from office—by precedent rather than by law. A statute of the Twelve Tables declared that whatever the people voted last should be law and valid[2277]; and through the ages preceding the Gracchi they had often applied this principle to the extension of their power at the expense of the senate and magistrates. They were sovereign; and if they chose to introduce the custom of deposing a magistrate whom they regarded as the betrayer of their dearest interests, they had the legal right. The wisdom of the proceeding may be questioned, but he who has followed the history of the assemblies thus far must regard the measure as merely one of the many steps by which the people advanced toward the realization of their sovereignty. Tiberius attempted to apply the same principle to securing his election to the tribunate. His motive was not a purely selfish desire to save his life; it required no superhuman wisdom to discover that his downfall would mean the collapse of the great reform on which he had set his heart. The continued ascendancy of a popular champion necessarily involved the overthrow of the senatorial government. This idea, which he now clearly grasped, found expression in his new political platform, (1) to shorten the period of military service, (2) by means of a law of appeal to vest the supreme jurisdiction solely in the people, so as to deprive the senate of its extra-constitutional judicial power,[2278] (3) to give the equites equal representation with the senators in the juries, or possibly as Dio Cassius states, to transfer the courts from the senate to the knights.[2279] When the day of election came, his peasant supporters were busy with their harvests, and his platform did not strongly appeal to the city plebs, on whom he had chiefly to rely for votes. Had the people insisted, as they twice did in favor of Scipio,[2280] they would have prevailed either with or without an act of dispensation passed by the senate or by themselves[2281]; but the weakness of his supporters rather than any illegality in the proceeding proved his ruin. To free the future reformer from this limitation, however, a rogation of C. Papirius Carbo, tribune of the plebs in 131, proposed that a tribune should be eligible to reëlection as many times as he chose to offer himself as a candidate. This rogation failed[2282]; but before the tribunate of C.