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Biography | |
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Tiberius was born to an aristocratic family with lots of political connections. He joined the army, which during his career revealed the weakness of Rome. Its army was already stretched protecting Roman interests in the Mediterranean, added to this was the decline in supply of Roman citizens both in general and those who were in a position to join the army. The reason for this was the wealthy land owners who benefited from the poor mans inability to afford his property after he had returned from war, which could last decades. The landowning peasantry, who were the basis of a roman army were declining while the population of landless poor was climbing. Tiberius whished to stop this by reinstating the law that restricted the amount of land someone was allowed to own. He met great opposition to this because the ruling classes were also the ones who were profiting form the abandonment of the old law. To do this Tiberius bypassed the senate and was elected into the tribunes. The practice of the Peoples assembly to pass reformist measures without the advice of the senate was becoming more common in recent years. Tiberius was now able to pass his new bill save for Oictavius who would have vetoed it if Tiberius had not first had him dragged from the rostra. This alienated many of Tiberius’ supporters who believed this action undermined the authority of the tribune. It also caused the senate to agree to prosecute Tiberius for his actions after his term was over. Hoping to avoid this Tiberius ran for tribune yet again but before he could do so the some senators hoping to incite a riot and prevent this caused the death of Tiberius. |
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