Hello and welcome to this episode of Epox where I shall be continuing my series talking about the

decline of fall of the Roman Republic. Last time I talked to you all about the life and career and

times of Tiberius Gracchus and this time I should be talking

about the next sort of great event in that narrative of the decline of fall of the Roman

Republic the story of his little brother, Gaius

so let's just jump straight in.

Gaius was about nine years younger

than Tiberius.

And so his career he takes his place

on the stage of history about 10 years later

he was only 21 when his older brother was killed so he was about the same age as his

older brother when he gets involved in politics 30 Again, there's lots of parallels

between these two brothers, their careers.

And they would be in the faction, what would later

be called the popularity.

Now, these two factions, a lot of you may already know about them, didn't really occur until a bit later

formally. They were never formal parties, the optimates and the popularity, but the optimates

were a faction which were for tradition and for the senatorial class and for the status quo and the popularies were for the people the the populist party if you like.

But those two factions really only kind of apply to the senator in real class

and as I say they were never sort of ever formally strictly parties in any way.

And there was a lot of crossover. Someone like Julius Caesar for example was always

staunchly popularities, but a lot of senators, a lot of power players would swap sides and they'd be traditional in one set of policies but popular in another.

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