"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
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