'ejected,' 'moved from the Senate' (ejecti, moti senatu), was properly applied to those who had been senators and were now omitted from the list.

On this occasion Metellus ejected from the Senate the tribune C. Atinius Labeo Macerio. The tribune attempted to revenge himself by seizing Metellus as he was coming home from the Campus Martius, and ordering him to be thrown down the Tarpeian rock; but he was saved by the interposition of another tribune who was found with difficulty, for it was the time of mid-day and the Forum and the Capitol were deserted. It seems incredible that such an attempt, which was only a form of assassination, should be made upon a censor for doing what he had power to do, and for doing an act for which he was not liable to be called to account. But a tribune during his office was invested with a sanctity like a constitutional king. When his office ceased, he would be accountable for an act like this. If Labeo really intended to commit a murder, he must have intended also to leave Rome before he could be tried for it.

It is sometimes said in modern books, without any evidence for the assertion, that this Atinius Labeo is the man who proposed and carried the Plebiscitum Atinium. This Plebiscitum is only mentioned by Gellius (xiv. 8), who says, "that the Tribuni plebis had the power to hold meetings of the Senate, though they were not senators before the Plebiscitum Atinium;" which Plebiscitum, it is supposed, gave the Tribuni plebis the power of sitting in the Senate with senatorian rank during their term of office, and after the end of their office the capacity to be entered by the censors on the senatorian rolls at the ceremony of the 'lectio senatus,' or formal constitution of the list of senators by the censors. But it is plainly a great mistake to assume that the Plebiscitum Atinium was proposed by this Labeo, for the assumption is quite inconsistent with the story. The fact is that Metellus ejected C. Atinius Labeo from the Senate, as Pliny says; and if Labeo was ejected from the Senate, he must have been in it. The Epitome of Livy states perhaps less correctly that he was 'passed over' by the censor (praeteritus) in his list of the Senate. A passage from Livy (xxiii. 23) has been used

to show that the Tribuni plebis had senatorian rank long before the time of this Atinius Labeo; but the passage does not prove the fact. The date of the Plebiscitum Atinium is unknown; and we know no more of the law than the few words recorded by Gellius.

This crazy tribune having failed to assassinate a censor tried the charms of religion against him. Taking with him a man to blow the flute, for such was a necessary actor at a solemn ceremony, and a brazier of coals to the Rostra, he consecrated to religious uses, his piper duly piping the while, all the property of Metellus. The farce was intended and calculated to have some effect on a superstitious people. If we believe Pliny, such was the power of this solemnity that Metellus henceforth could not touch his property and lived on the bounty of others; or we may believe and hope with the author of the oration De Domo, that the tribune's ridiculous trick produced no effect, and that Metellus still went on eating, drinking, and clothing himself at his own cost, instead of troubling his friends. We have still to add to this strange story that among so many Metelli, and among the four sons of the censor, there was not a man who ventured to punish Atinius for this brutal violence. Pliny cannot decide or does not decide whether this fact redounds more to the honour of the morals of that time, that such respect was paid to the sacrosanct authority by the Metelli, or whether it should excite our indignation that the tribune was not well punished for his insolence.

Tiberius Gracchus lost his life in attempting to force himself into the Tribunate a second time. But his party was not discouraged from trying to do in legal form that which Gracchus wished to do illegally. C. Papirius Carbo, a tribune of the plebs, proposed in B.c. 131 a Rogatio, by which a man might be elected tribune any number of times. Caius Gracchus spoke in favour of the proposed law, and plainly declared himself the enemy of the nobility and a supporter of his brother's policy. C. Laelius the friend of Scipio spoke against Carbo's Rogatio. Scipio also opposed it with unusual vigour, and it was rejected by the popular vote. We do not know the arguments which Scipio used, but he must have

spoken well to induce the people to vote against what would seem to be a popular measure; and the judgment of Scipio was in this case sound. During the discussion which preceded the voting, Carbo with the design of making Scipio unpopular asked him what he thought of the death of Tiberius Gracchus. The answer is reported in different ways by different authorities, and it is perhaps not certain whether the question was put when Scipio was speaking against Carbo's law or on some other occasion. Scipio replied that Gracchus deserved his death. The answer was followed by a burst of indignant clamour from the crowd, to which Scipio answered like a haughty Roman noble: he had never been terrified, he said, by the shouts of the enemy whom he had so often encountered, and he should not be alarmed now by the cries of men to whom Italy was a step-mother; by which he meant to say that these noisy brawlers were only liberated slaves. Rome had now a great number of such freed men, who by manumission had become Roman citizens. Slaves belonging to the Italian allies would also often be manumitted, but, like their former masters, these men would be Peregrini or aliens to Rome.

Carbo in his tribunate carried a law, one of those which the Romans named Tabellariae, a ballot law. Hitherto in voting for or against the enactment of a law (Lex) the people gave their votes orally. The Lex Tabellaria of Carbo enacted that the voting should be by Tabellae as the Lex Gabinia and Cassia had provided for other occasions.

The waning influence of Scipio may perhaps be discovered in the fact of his unsuccessful prosecution (B.c. 131) of L. Aurelius Cotta. The offence of Cotta was Repetundae, or the illegal acquisition of money in some provincial government, probably as praetor. He was acquitted by a bribed jury, as Appian found it somewhere stated. Q. Caecilius Metellus Macedonicus defended Cotta, not because he was innocent, if he was innocent, but because Metellus was a political opponent of Scipio. The trial was a party matter. Cicero attributes the acquittal of Cotta to the unwillingness of the jury to convict a man who might seem, if convicted, to have been ruined by the overpowering weight of the character and

influence of Scipio. But such a motive for a verdict proves that the jury did not like Scipio, and wished to see him humbled.

M' Aquillius, who had gone to the war against Aristonicus when the work was done, was also charged with malversation in his province. Greediness had become a common Roman vice, and a man looked on a foreign command as an opportunity for making a fortune. The prosecutor of Aquillius was P. Lentulus, Princeps Senatus, who was supported by C. Rutilius Rufus, a subscriptor, as the Romans termed him, or second prosecutor, who subscribed his name to the act of accusation and aided his principal on the trial. Aquillius was acquitted; and again it was said that the jury were bribed.

CHAPTER XVI.

P. SCIPIO AEMILIANUS.

B.C. 133-129.

AFTER the death of Tiberius Gracchus the Senate made no opposition to the execution of his Agrarian law. P. Licinius Crassus Mucianus, the father-in-law of Caius Gracchus, was appointed one of the three commissioners. According to Appian, after the death of Appius Claudius and Mucianus the commissioners were Caius Gracchus, M. Fulvius Flaccus, and C. Papirius Carbo.

There was great difficulty in executing the Agrarian law. Appian found in some writer what he has reported on this matter. What he reports is something that he could not invent, and it is quite consistent with what the nature of the case would lead us to expect, and what I have already said in speaking of the law of Ti. Gracchus. "Those who were in possession of Public Land neglected to make a return of their Possessions;" which return we may assume that the law required them to make, for there was no other way of determining what was Public Land, though it is also almost certain that in many cases the Possessors themselves could not exactly tell how much Public Land they occupied. "The commissioners gave notice that they would take the evidence of any persons who would give them information. Great crop of difficult suits soon sprung up. Land, which bordered on the Public Land and had been sold or distributed among the Socii, was all subjected to investigation, for the purpose of ascertaining the limits of the Public Land, and the owners were required to show how this land had been sold and how