According to Roman law, after a bill was introduced three market days had to pass before it could be voted on. With market days occurring about once a week, the interval between the introduction and the vote could be anywhere from eighteen to twenty-four calendar days. This delay allowed time for voters to make their way to Rome for the vote. Since Tiberius was tapping into real resentment, dispossesed citizens flooded into Rome over the next three weeks “like rivers flowing into the all-receptive ocean.” Even nonvoting Italians came in to support the bill. Though they could not vote they could still register their physical and psychological support for land redistribution. During these weeks, Tiberius regularly addressed the citizens in the Forum to harness and solidify their energy. He planned to have a large and eager majority in the Assembly when it came time to vote.33
After three market days had passed, Tiberius convened the Assembly on the Capitoline Hill to consider the Lex Agraria. The space would have been packed with voters, giving the area in front of the Temple of Jupiter “the appearance of stormy waves on the sea.” Before the official presentation, Tiberius defended the Lex Agraria with the speech of his life. The Gracchi had been trained by the best orators in the Mediterranean, and Tiberius perfected an irresistibly calm and dignified presence on stage. He did not pace the rostra or beat his chest. He stood perfectly still and allowed the inherent force of his argument to hold the audience’s rapt attention. According to Plutarch, Tiberius composed himself in the center of the rostra and delivered an impassioned defense of the common citizens of Rome.34
“The wild beasts that roam over Italy have every one of them a cave or lair to lurk in,” he said, while “the men who fight and die for Italy enjoy the common air and light… but nothing else; houseless and homeless they wander about with their wives and children.” Invoking the imagery of an Italian population dislocated by war and poverty, he said, “It is with lying lips that their commanders exhort the soldiers in their battles to protect sepulchers and shrines from the enemy… but they fight and die to support others in wealth and luxury.” These ruinous wars had led to an unacceptable irony for the average Roman: “though they are styled masters of the world, they have not a single clod of earth that is their own.”35
After bringing the Assembly to tears, Tiberius requested the clerk read the bill in preparation for the vote that he would surely win. But as it turned out senatorial opponents of the Lex Agraria had themselves been busy over the past three weeks. Knowing they would lose the vote, they had recruited Marcus Octavius, one of Tiberius’s fellow tribunes, to prevent the vote from even taking place. One of the most powerful weapons a tribune wielded was the veto—which meant “I forbid.” A tribune could veto anything, at any time, for any reason, and not even another tribune could overturn it. So when the clerk rose to formally read the Lex Agraria, Marcus Octavius stepped forward and vetoed the reading of the bill. Everything stopped. The vote could not take place until the clerk read the bill, so as long as Octavius maintained his veto, the bill could not be read and the vote could not take place. With the proceedings ground to a halt, Tiberius adjourned the Assembly for the day.36
AFTER FAILING TO avoid senatorial opposition with a generous bill, Tiberius and his Claudian backers decided the best play was to rally his popular base by making villains of the rich. Tiberius stripped out the friendly concessions before the next vote so that the Lex Agraria would be “more agreeable to the multitude and more severe against the wrongdoers.” With luck, pressure from the populace would force Octavius to give up his veto and allow the bill to come to a vote—a vote they would surely win.37
In between sessions of the Assembly, Tiberius and Octavius came every day to the Forum to debate the merits of the Lex Agraria. The Forum is not a large area and like the stages at a music festival, there were few rostras available for speechmaking and their audiences often overlapped. In such close quarters, Tiberius and Octavius often engaged each other directly in debate. As Tiberius grew more and more exasperated, he promised to purchase all the ager publicus Octavius owned at a fair price if Octavius would drop his opposition the bill—hinting that Octavius’s opposition was rooted in crass self-interest rather than high-minded public spirit. But Octavius refused to give up.38
