His popular measures here displeased his brother-in-law, and he ceased to be a favorite with him.

On his return home he passed through Tuscany where he was astonished to see large tracts of the _ager publicus_ (see Chapter VII.) cultivated by slave gangs, while the free poor citizens of the Republic were wandering in towns without employment, and deprived of the land which, according to law (see the Licinian Rogations), should have been divided among them, and not held in large quantities by the rich land-owners.
Tiberius determined to rectify this wrong.

In 133 he offered himself as candidate for the tribuneship, and was elected.

He then began boldly the battle for the commons.

He proposed to revise the Agrarian Law, now a dead letter, which forbade the holding of more than 320 acres of the _ager publicus_ by one individual.