One difficulty in the carrying out of the agrarian law was due to the fact that the poverty of the mass of the Roman citizens was such that very few who desired to secure an allotment of land were possessed of, or could secure, the necessary money to stock the new farms and to erect the necessary buildings. When, therefore, at this crisis, it was learned that Attalus Philometor, the recently deceased king of Pergamus, in Asia Minor, had made the Roman people his heirs, bequeathing to them both his kingdom and all his private lands and treasures, Gracchus grasped at this opportunity to overcome the difficulty experienced by the agrarian commission. He proposed a law providing that all the money so received should be used to furnish the necessary stock for those to whom the public land was assigned. About the same time another law was enacted, apparently not proposed by Tiberius Gracchus, providing that the Agrarian Commission (called the triumviri) should have final jurisdiction in all controversies over the question as to whether any particular piece of land was public or private land. The capitalistic party, setting an example which has been so often followed in our own country and in our own day, now attempted to divert the issue from the reforms being put into operation through the energy of Gracchus, by personal attacks upon the tribune himself; he was accused of having received a purple robe and diadem from the envoy of the late king of Pergamus; of having violated the Roman constitution; of desiring to make himself king over Rome. Only vindictive partisanship could find any basis upon which to allege the truth of any of these charges except perhaps that of a technical violation of the Roman constitution in the deposition of Octavius. The extreme party in the Senate, led by Publius Scipio Nasica, were openly plotting the death of Tiberius Gracchus, either by assassination or by judicial proceedings, as soon as his term of office should expire. The violent position taken by his opponents clearly showed to Tiberius Gracchus that both his reforms and his life were in danger. It was evident that neither the agrarian reforms nor the life of Gracchus would be safe after he had ceased to hold the office of tribune, and the course of events finally drove Tiberius into becoming a candidate for reëlection. To strengthen his hold upon the people he prepared three new laws. The first law diminished the required period of military service; the second law changed the procedure in the higher courts of law, and permitted the jurors to be selected from all persons possessing a certain amount of property, instead of (as previously) restricting the selection to members of the Senate; the third law created the right of appeal from the courts of law to the assembly of the people in all cases.