Tiberius Gracchus tried to enforce a 500-iugera cap on public land, senators clubbed him to death, and his brother's head was filled with lead for a reward

An old Roman law barred anyone from holding more than 500 iugera of public land. Plutarch says the rich evaded it with fictitious tenants. Tiberius Gracchus, tribune in 133 BC, proposed to enforce it and to give the surplus to poor citizens. His first draft paid the holders; after the tribune Octavius vetoed it, the second draft paid them nothing. Tiberius had the assembly vote Octavius out of office. A three-man commission was named: Tiberius, his brother Gaius and his father-in-law Appius Claudius. Tiberius proposed giving the new farmers the treasure King Attalus III had willed to Rome. Senators led by Scipio Nasica attacked his supporters with clubs and the legs of benches. More than 300 were killed, Plutarch says, none by the sword. The Senate refused Gaius's request to bury his brother at night and threw the body into the Tiber. In 121 BC Gaius was cornered in a sacred grove, and his slave Philocrates killed him. The consul Opimius had offered the head's weight in gold. Septimuleius removed the brain and poured in lead before claiming it. About 3,000 died. Their property was sold for the treasury, and Gaius's widow Licinia lost her dowry. Rome later put up a bronze statue of their mother inscribed "Cornelia, Mother of the Gracchi." The commission was abolished in 118 BC, and a law of 111 BC made the land it had handed out private property.