 The plan included a method to quiet title, and had a goal of increasing the efficiency of farmland, while doling out small parcels of land to tenant farmers, his populist constituency.Gracchus used a law that had been in place for over a century, the "lex Hortensia" of 287 BC, which allowed the assembly of plebs to bypass the Senate.However, another tribune, Marcus Octavius, used his veto to scuttle the plan.