The Storm Before the Storm: The Beginning of the End of the Roman Republic

by Mike Duncan

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.”57