The Cursus Honorum: A History of the Roman Republic

Tiberius Grakis, a reformer who aligned the interests of the agrarian poor with his own ambitions, used extreme tactics to try and break up land monopolies. A shrewd politician had perceived the imperatives of the disenfranchised masses as an excuse to take extra-legal measures. Many more would follow him in doing so in the century to come. The problem that had begun to unfold by the 130s was put simply that that balance, if it had ever existed in the first place,.