Titus Livius (Livy), The History of Rome, Book 43
Alfred C. Schlesinger, Ph.D., Ed.

16. In reviewing the knights, the censorship of these officials was rather stern and harsh; they deprived many of their horses. [2] When in this matter they had offended the order of knights, they added fire to the grudge by a proclamation, in which they proclaimed that none of those who in the censorship of Quintus Fulvius and Aulus Postumius¹ had farmed the public revenues or the public works should appear at the auction of Claudius and Sempronius,² or should be a partner or sharer in the contracting. [3] When, after many complaints about this decree, the veteran tax-gatherers were unable to induce the senate to set a limit to the censors' power,³ at last in a tribune of the people, Publius Rutilius, who was angry with the censors over a dispute concerning a private matter, they found an advocate for their cause. [4] A freedman client of Rutilius had been ordered by the censors to pull down a house-wall on the Sacred Way opposite the public temples, because the wall was built on state land. [5] An appeal was made by the citizen to the tribunes. When no one but Rutilius intervened in his behalf, the censors [p. 57]sent agents to secure bonds⁴ and announced before⁵ a meeting a fine for the citizen.⁶ [6] A dispute having arisen from this cause, when the veteran tax-gatherers had resorted to the tribune, a proposed law was suddenly published under the name of the one tribune, stating that whereas Gaius Claudius and Tiberius Sempronius had let certain public revenues and public works, the letting of these should be void; [7] they should be let anew, and everyone without restriction should have the right of farming and contracting. The tribune of the people announced for the assembly⁷ a day for voting on this proposal.⁸ [8] When this day came, as the censors came forward to advise against the law,⁹ while Gracchus was speaking there was silence; when heckling greeted Claudius, he ordered the herald to bring the meeting to order. [9] When this was done, the tribune, complaining that the meeting had been taken out of his hands and that he had been deprived of his authority, left the Capitol, where the assembly was. Next day he raised a great uproar. [10] He first dedicated to the gods the property of Tiberius Gracchus because in the matter of the fine and the bonds imposed on one who had appealed to a tribune, [p. 59]Gracchus had, by not obeying the tribune's interposition,¹⁰ deprived him of his authority; [11] he set a day for the trial of Gaius Claudius on the charge of taking the meeting away from him; and he announced that he judged each censor guilty of treason, and asked of Gaius Sulpicius the city praetor a day for an assembly.¹¹ [12] Since the censors did not object to having the people pass judgment on them at the first possible moment, the day for the assembly-trial for treason was set for the twenty-third and twenty-fourth of September.¹² [13] The censors immediately mounted to the Hall of Liberty¹³ and, having there sealed the public accounts and closed the account room and sent away the public slaves, declared that they would transact no public business until the judgment of the people upon them had been passed. [14] Claudius pleaded his cause first; and when of the twelve centuries of knights eight had condemned the censor, along with many other centuries of the first class, at once the leading men of the state, in the sight of the people, laid aside their gold rings and [p. 61]put on mourning,¹⁴ in order to go about entreating¹⁵ the commons. [15] Chiefly, however, Tiberius Gracchus is said to have changed men's minds, because, although there was everywhere shouting from the commons that Gracchus was in no danger, he swore in formal terms that if his colleague were condemned he would not await the outcome of his own trial, but would accompany Claudius into exile.¹⁶ None the less, so near did the defendant come to the last ray of hope that only eight centuries were lacking for condemnation. [16] When Claudius had been acquitted, the tribune of the people said that he did not care about the case of Gracchus.¹⁷