Gracchus was deeply grieved that one of his party should have been so rash. It gave to his enemies the very opportunity which they wished.
The Senate, indeed, showed great horror at such a deed of violence, and ordered the body of the dead man to be held up to the people. ‘This is how Gracchus and his friends treat the poor,’ was what the Senate wished the people to think. It then denounced Gaius and his party as enemies of the republic.
After this both the parties left the Capitol, Gracchus and his friends taking up their position on the Aventine hill early the following morning.
Before he left home Gaius refused to wear armour, but put on his gown as though he were simply going to an Assembly of the people. He did, however, wear a short dagger beneath his tunic.
As he reached the threshold his wife rushed after him and caught him with one hand, while with the other she clasped one of her children.
‘You go now,’ she said to her husband, ‘to expose your body to the murderers of Tiberius, unarmed, indeed, and rightly so, choosing rather to suffer the worst of injuries than do the least yourself.’
But Gaius would listen to no more. Gently he withdrew himself from her hold, and stricken with grief, his wife fell to the ground.
When Opimius, the Consul, heard of the gathering on the Aventine, he declared that it was an act of war to seize a position within the city and hold it against the Senate. He ordered it to be proclaimed that he would give its weight in gold to any one who brought him the head of Gaius Gracchus. Then, with a troop of soldiers and archers, Opimius prepared to march against those whom he had declared rebels.
The leader of the mob, for indeed it was little else, was Fulvius, who had been both tribune and Consul.
He now sent his young son, of eighteen years of age, to propose to the Senate that peace should be arranged without having recourse to arms.