Political violence in the late roman republic

"Tiberius’s supporters packed the area near the Temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline Hill to ensure they controlled the voting space. Accompanied by bodyguards, Tiberius himself arrived and was greeted by cheers and applause from the crowd. When opponents of Tiberius arrived, they found themselves unable to push through the pro-Gracchan mob. Prevented from accessing the voting stalls, when the anti-Gracchan voters heard the call for the tribes to begin voting, scuffles erupted on the edge of the crowd as opponents tried to push their way in. The fighting halted the voting.

Meanwhile, the Senate convened for a session in the Temple of Fides, located just around the corner on the Capitoline. Rumors swirled that Tiberius had deposed all the other tribunes and was preparing to assume regal powers. The consul presiding over the Senate that morning was none other than Mucius Scaevola—one of the authors of the Lex Agraria. Nasica and the hard-liners in the Senate demanded Scaevola do something, but the consul replied that “he would resort to no violence and would put no citizen to death without a trial; if, however, the people, under persuasion or compulsion from Tiberius, should vote anything that was unlawful, he would not regard this vote as binding.”

This was not good enough for the incensed Nasica, who rose in response and said, “Let those who would save our country follow me.” Nasica then donned the formal attire of the pontifex maximus and put himself at the head of a mob of like-minded senators and clients. Together they marched to the Temple of Jupiter. As weapons were not permitted to be carried inside the Pomerium—the sacred city limits—Nasica and his followers armed themselves mostly with table legs and other bludgeons. Though the coming attack was not premeditated, it was clear they were willing to use force to beat back the mob trying to make Tiberius Gracchus king of Rome.

Meanwhile, up on the rostra, Tiberius was warned about the approaching mob. Tiberius’s men turned and readied for battle, but hesitated when they saw the mob included senators and was led by the pontifex maximus himself. Though the Gracchans started to give way, Nasica’s men aggressively pushed and beat the crowd anyway. Once the shoving and hitting began, Tiberius’s supporters naturally fought back, leading to a line of clashes throughout the Assembly. The casualties in the resulting mêlée were entirely one-sided—Tiberius’s people were unarmed and made easy targets for Nasica’s gang. Trapped in the confined space in front of the Temple of Jupiter, many people were trampled underfoot or fell to their deaths off the steep cliffs of the Capitoline. When the dust cleared three hundred people lay dead.

The principal target of the attack was, of course, Tiberius himself, and it didn’t take long for the reactionary senators to locate their prey. Near the entrance of the Temple of Jupiter, Tiberius tripped over the body of a man who had already fallen and before he could get up, he was set upon by a fellow tribune and a senator. Though he was a tribune and allegedly sacrosanct, these two men proceeded to beat Tiberius Gracchus to death with the legs of a bench. As the historian Appian records: “So perished on the Capitol, and while still tribune, Gracchus, the son of that Gracchus who was twice consul, and of Cornelia, daughter of that Scipio who robbed Carthage of her supremacy. He lost his life in consequence of a most excellent design too violently pursued; and this abominable crime, the first that was perpetrated in the public assembly, was seldom without parallels thereafter from time to time.”" The Storm Before the Storm: The Beginning of the End of the Roman Republic