After Tiberius has been murdered, Blossus escapes death but is sent into exile, where he participates in the revolt of Aristonicus and perishes.
Plutarch relates this in Parallel Lives: Tiberius Grachus:
[...] But Tiberius, being elected tribune of the people, entered
upon that design without delay, at the instigation, as is
most commonly stated, of Diophanes, the rhetorician, and
Blossius, the philosopher. Diophanes was a refugee from
Mitylene, the other was an Italian, of the city of Cuma, and
was educated there under Antipater of Tarsus, who afterwards
did him the honor to dedicate some of his philosophical
lectures to him. Some have also charged Cornelia, the mother
of Tiberius, with contributing towards it, because she
frequently upbraided her sons, that the Romans as yet rather
called her the daughter of Scipio, than the mother of the
Gracchi.
[...] By break of day came one of the soothsayers, who
prognosticate good or bad success by the pecking of fowls,
and threw them something to eat. The soothsayer used his
utmost endeavors to fright the fowls out of their coop; but
none of them except one would venture out, which fluttered
with its left wing, and stretched out its leg, and ran back
again into the coop, without eating anything. This put
Tiberius in mind of another ill omen which had formerly
happened to him. He had a very costly headpiece, which he
made use of when he engaged in any battle, and into this
piece of armor two serpents crawled, laid eggs, and brought
forth young ones. The remembrance of which made Tiberius
more concerned now, than otherwise he would have been.
However, he went towards the capitol, as soon as he
understood that the people were assembled there; but before
he got out of the house, he stumbled upon the threshold with
such violence, that he broke the nail of his great toe,
insomuch that blood gushed out of his shoe. He was not gone
very far before he saw two ravens fighting on the top of a
house which stood on his left hand as he passed along; and
though he was surrounded with a number of people, a stone,
struck from its place by one of the ravens, fell just at his
foot. This even the boldest men about him felt as a check.
But Blossius of Cuma, who was present, told him, that it
would be a shame, and an ignominious thing, for Tiberius, who
was the son of Gracchus, the grandson of Scipio Africanus,
and the protector of the Roman people, to refuse, for fear of
a silly bird, to answer, when his countrymen called to him;
and that his adversaries would represent it not as a mere
matter for their ridicule, but would declaim about it to the
people as the mark of a tyrannical temper, which felt a pride
in taking liberties with the people. At the same time
several messengers came also from his friends, to desire his
presence at the capitol, saying that all things went there
according to expectation. And indeed Tiberius's first
entrance there was in every way successful; as soon as ever
he appeared, the people welcomed him with loud acclamations,
and as he went up to his place, they repeated their
expressions of joy, and gathered in a body around him, so
that no one who was not well known to be his friend, might
approach. Mucius then began to put the business again to the
vote; but nothing could be performed in the usual course and
order, because of the disturbance caused by those who were on
the outside of the crowd, where there was a struggle going on
with those of the opposite party, who were pushing on and
trying to force their way in and establish themselves among
them.
[...] Diophanes, the orator, was
slain, and one Caius Villius cruelly murdered by being shut
up in a large tun with vipers and serpents. Blossius of
Cuma, indeed, was carried before the consuls, and examined
touching what had happened, and freely confessed, that he
had done, without scruple, whatever Tiberius bade him.
"What," replied Nasica, "then if Tiberius had bidden you burn
the capitol, would you have burnt it?" His first answer was,
that Tiberius never would have ordered any such thing; but
being pressed with the same question by several others, he
declared, "If Tiberius had commanded it, it would have been
right for me to do it; for he never would have commanded it,
if it had not been for the people's good." Blossius at this
time was pardoned, and afterwards went away to Aristonicus in
Asia, and when Aristonicus was overthrown and ruined, killed
himself.
After Smyrna one comes to Leucae, a small town, which after the death of Attalus Philometor was caused to revolt by Aristonicus, who was reputed to belong to the royal family and intended to usurp the kingdom. Now he was banished from Smyrna, after being defeated in a naval battle near the Cymaean territory by the Ephesians, but he went up into the interior and quickly assembled a large number of resourceless people, and also of slaves, invited with a promise of freedom, whom he called Heliopolitae. Now he first fell upon Thyateira unexpectedly, and then got possession of Apollonis, and then set his efforts against other fortresses. But he did not last long; the cities immediately sent a large number of troops against him, and they were assisted by Nicomedes the Bithynian and by the kings of the Cappadocians. Then came five Roman ambassadors, and after that an army under Publius Crassus the consul, and after that Marcus Perpernas, who brought the war to an end, having captured Aristonicus alive and sent him to Rome. Now Aristonicus ended his life in prison; Perpernas died of disease; and Crassus, attacked by certain people in the neighborhood of Leucae, fell in battle.
Blossius committed suicide, Pergamum became the Roman province of Asia.
Note: This is the only version of the text I could locate.
Plutarch, Parallel Lives: Gaius Gracchus
Cornelia, Mother of the Gracchi.
Above image courtesy Wikimedia Commons, The Comic History of Rome by Gilbert Abbott A Beckett, p. 239: Melancholy end of Tib. Gracchus.
