 Civil unrest spilled into violence; Gracchus and many of his supporters were murdered by their conservative opponents.At the behest of the Sibylline oracle, the senate sent the quindecimviri to Ceres' ancient cult centre at Henna in Sicily, the goddess' supposed place of origin and earthly home.Some kind of religious consultation or propitiation was given, either to expiate Gracchus' murder – as later Roman sources would claim – or to justify it as the lawful killing of a would-be king or demagogue, a "homo sacer" who had offended Ceres' laws against tyranny.