To make it possible for the tribunes to give such protection, the veto had been granted to them. From the time when this power had first been secured by the tribunes down to the day when the agrarian law of Tiberius Gracchus came before the comitia tributa for its final decision, the veto power of the Roman tribune had been the greatest bulwark of the poor man of Rome. Now, in the greatest crisis of the long contest in Roman history of human rights against class privileges, this power was to be the weapon by which a traitor was to secure the victory of the rich landowners over the great body of the Roman citizens. The day upon which the bill was to come before the comitia tributa found the Forum crowded with what was probably the largest number of citizens who, up to this time, had ever attended a meeting of this assembly. Tiberius Gracchus made his speech in favor of the law, which speech was received with great applause. The moment of his great triumph was apparently just at hand. The clerk was about to read the words of the bill, before it was voted upon, when the renegade tribune Marcus Octavius stood up and forbade the clerk to read the bill. Gracchus was surprised and, for the time, helpless. After much bitter discussion, the meeting was adjourned; but Gracchus gave notice that he would take up his bill again upon the next regular meeting day of the comitia tributa. The cowardly treachery of his colleague, instead of discouraging Tiberius Gracchus, merely spurred him on to greater efforts. His policy, formerly in the main a conciliatory one, now became militant. In retaliation for the veto of Octavius he too made use of this power. Indeed, a more thorough and effective use of this power than that made by Gracchus at this time can hardly be imagined. A veto was put upon the exercise of any of his functions by any of the Roman officials; even the treasury was shut up and the courts of justice discontinued. As the great landowners had now forfeited all claims to consideration on account of the methods which they had adopted, the compensation clauses were struck out of the bill, which in its amended form simply provided that the state should resume possession of all lands held in contravention of the Licinian Law. Even in this amended form there was nothing revolutionary about the bill; it was merely the reënactment of a law which already existed, and should have been in operation. On the second day when the bill came before the comitia an attempt was again made to read the law, and this was again prevented by the veto of the tribune Octavius. Party feeling by this time ran so high that a riot seemed inevitable. Trouble was for the time averted by an agreement to refer the matter to the Senate.