There came a time in the great Republic, when the populist leader found himself opposed and denounced by the leaders in the Senate. His efforts at reforming the corrupt state to benefit the people of the Republic had run into the same buzz saw that the policies he also championed had hit a decade before. Then they populists had backed off and the Optimates had maintained their iron grip on power and control of society. But this time… things were different.
A series of military setbacks and economic sluggishness had left the Republic shaken. There was an undercurrent of unrest and a growing belief that the government had become so corrupt that there was no chance for the common man – the Pleb, who was constantly called upon to defend the honor and the glory of the Republic – to have any real chance at all of obtaining any stability or property in life.
On June 9, 133 bce, in Rome, all hell broke loose. When the sun went down, Tiberius Gracchus, the populist candidate for office, was dead, his body tossed into the Tiber River. And the Senate was firmly back in control of the Republic.
Or… were they?
DAVE DOES HISTORY 
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