With the majority of the Senate hostile, the Claudians elected to break with mos maiorum and have Tiberius present the bill directly to the Assembly without giving the Senate a chance to register their opinion. There was no law stating that a bill must be presented to the Senate before it was introduced in the Assembly—it was simply the way things had always been done. Tiberius’s provocative gambit set everyone on edge. Shortly after taking office in December 134 Tiberius appeared before the Assembly and announced his intention to pass a law redistributing ager publicus from the rich to the
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