Champion of the Common Man

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The epithet Champion of the Common Man has been applied to several people, including some women:

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Gracchi Ancient Roman brothers known for their social reforms

The Gracchi brothers, Tiberius and Gaius, were Romans who both served as tribunes of the plebs between 133 and 121 BC. They attempted to redistribute the occupation of the ager publicus—the public land hitherto controlled principally by aristocrats—to the urban poor and veterans, in addition to other social and constitutional reforms. After achieving some early success, both were assassinated by the Optimates, the conservative faction in the senate that opposed these reforms.

Quaestor

A quaestor was a public official in Ancient Rome. The position served different functions depending on the period. In the Roman Kingdom, quaestores parricidii were appointed by the king to investigate and handle murders. In the Roman Republic, quaestors were elected officials who supervised the state treasury and conducted audits. It was the lowest ranking position in the cursus honorum. However, this means that in the political environment of Rome, it was quite common for many aspiring politicians to take the position of quaestor as an early rung on the political ladder. In the Roman Empire, the position, which was initially replaced by the praefectus (prefect), reemerged during the late empire as quaestor intra Palatium, a position appointed by the emperor to lead the imperial council and respond to petitioners.

François-Noël Babeuf French political agitator and journalist of the French Revolutionary period

François-Noël Babeuf, also known as Gracchus Babeuf, was a French socialist, revolutionary and journalist of the French Revolutionary period. His newspaper Le tribun du peuple was best known for its advocacy for the poor and calling for a popular revolt against the Directory, the government of France. He was a leading advocate for democracy and the abolition of private property. He angered the authorities who were clamping down hard on their radical enemies. In spite of the efforts of his Jacobin friends to save him, Babeuf was executed for his role in the Conspiracy of the Equals.

Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus was a populist Roman politician best known for his agrarian reform law entailing the transfer of land from the Roman state and wealthy landowners to poorer citizens. Against stiff opposition in the aristocratic Senate, this legislation was carried through during his term as tribune of the plebs in 133 BC. Fears of Tiberius's populist programme, as well as his uncompromising behavior, led to him being killed, along with many supporters, in a riot instigated by his senatorial enemies. A decade later his younger brother Gaius attempted similar legislation and suffered a similar fate.

Lucius Appuleius Saturninus was a Roman populist and tribune. He is most notable for introducing a series of legislative reforms, alongside his associate Gaius Servilius Glaucia and with the consent of Gaius Marius, during the last years of the second century BC. Senatorial opposition to these laws eventually led to an internal crisis, the declaration of the senatus consultum ultimum, and the deaths of Saturninus, Glaucia, and their followers in 100 BC.

Gaius Gracchus Ancient Rome politician

Gaius Sempronius Gracchus was a Roman Popularis politician in the 2nd century BC and brother of the reformer Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus. His election to the office of tribune in the years 123 BC and 122 BC and reformative policies while in office prompted a constitutional crisis and his death at the hands of the Roman Senate in 121 BC.

Cornelia (mother of the Gracchi) Roman noblewoman, mother of the Gracchi

Cornelia was the second daughter of Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus, the hero of the Second Punic War, and Aemilia Paulla. Although drawing similarities to prototypical examples of virtuous Roman women, such as Lucretia, Cornelia puts herself apart from the rest because of her interest in literature, writing, and her investment in the political careers of her sons. She was the mother of the Gracchi brothers, and the mother-in-law of Scipio Aemilianus.

Scipio Aemilianus 2nd century BC Roman politician and general

Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus Aemilianus, primarily known as Scipio Aemilianus, was a Roman general and statesman noted for his military exploits in the Third Punic War against Carthage and during the Numantine War in Spain. He oversaw the final defeat and destruction of the city of Carthage. He was a prominent patron of writers and philosophers, the most famous of whom was the Greek historian Polybius. In politics, he opposed the populist reform program of his murdered brother-in-law, Tiberius Gracchus.

Publius Cornelius Scipio Nasica Serapio was an important politician of the Roman Republic. A member of the great patrician gens Cornelia, he was the son of Scipio Nasica Corculum, the pontifex maximus and princeps senatus. As with many other Cornelii Scipiones, Serapio obtained several prominent offices; he notably succeeded his father as pontifex maximus in 141 BC, and became consul in 138 BC. A firm conservative, like his father and his cousin Scipio Aemilianus, he led the opposition to the tribune of the plebs Tiberius Gracchus, whom he finally murdered in 133 BC. However, he was sent to Asia by the senate to avoid his prosecution by Gracchus' supporters, and died in Pergamum soon after.

The Optimates, also known as boni, were a conservative political faction in the late Roman Republic.

<i>Senatus consultum ultimum</i>

Senatus consultum ultimum, is the modern term given to a decree of the Roman Senate during the late Roman Republic that was passed in times of emergency. It expressed the opinion that to preserve the republic, an urgent threat needed countering. Although an SCU could grant rhetorical or argumentative support to the use of state power, it did not change a magistrate's legal powers or deprive a Roman citizen of his right to a trial.

Publius Mucius Scaevola was a prominent Roman politician and jurist who was consul in 133 BC. In his earlier political career he was tribune of the plebs in 141 BC and praetor in 136 BC. He also held the position of Pontifex Maximus for sixteen years after his consulship and died around 115 BC.

The First Celtiberian was the first of three major rebellions by the Celtiberians against the Roman presence in Hispania. The other two were the Second Celtiberian War and the Numantine War. Hispania was the name the Romans gave to the Iberian Peninsula. The peninsula was inhabited by various ethnic groups and numerous tribes. The Celtiberians were a confederation of five tribes which lived in a large area of east central Hispania, to the west of Hispania Citerior. The eastern part of their territory shared a stretch of the border of this Roman province. The Celtiberian tribes were the Pellendones, the Arevaci, the Lusones, the Titti and the Belli.

Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus was a Roman politician of the 2nd century BC. He served two consulships and was awarded two triumphs, with consulships in 177 and 163 BC. Tiberius is also noteworthy as the father of the two famous 'Gracchi' popularis reformers, Tiberius and Gaius.

Sempronia gens Roman clan

The gens Sempronia was one of the most ancient and noble houses of ancient Rome. Although the oldest branch of this gens was patrician, with Aulus Sempronius Atratinus obtaining the consulship in 497 BC, the thirteenth year of the Republic, but from the time of the Samnite Wars onward, most if not all of the Sempronii appearing in history were plebeians. Although the Sempronii were illustrious under the Republic, few of them attained any importance or notice in imperial times.

Battle of Beneventum (214 BC)

The Battle of Beneventum was fought in 214 BC near modern Benevento during the Second Punic War. Roman legions under Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus defeated Hanno's Carthaginian forces, denying Hannibal reinforcements. Livy gives a brief description of the battle, which was part of the Roman campaign to subdue the southern Italian city-states that had joined Hannibal after the Battle of Cannae.

"The Hunter Gracchus" is a short story by Franz Kafka. The story presents a boat carrying the long-dead Hunter Gracchus as it arrives at a port. The mayor of Riva meets Gracchus, who gives him an account of his death while hunting, and explains that he is destined to wander aimlessly and eternally over the seas. An additional fragment presents an extended dialogue between Gracchus and an unnamed interviewer, presumably the same mayor.

Tiberius Sempronius Ti. f. Ti. n. Gracchus was a Roman Republican consul in the Second Punic War. He was son of Tiberius Sempronius Ti. f. Gracchus, who was apparently the first man from his branch of the family to become a consul.

Tiberius Sempronius Ti.f. Gracchus, a Roman Republican consul in the year 238 BC, was the first man from his branch (stirps) of the family to become consul; several other plebeian Sempronii had already reached the consulship and even the censorship. He is best known as the father of the similarly named consul of 215 and 213 BC, and the grandfather of Tiberius Gracchus Major, and the great-grandfather of the Brothers Gracchi.

Gaius Hostilius Mancinus was a Roman consul in 137 BC. Due to his campaign against Numantia in northern Spain, Plutarch called him "not bad as a man, but most unfortunate of the Romans as a general." During this campaign in the Numantine War, Mancinus was defeated, showing some cowardice, allegedly putting out his fires and trying to flee by night before being surrounded and forced to make peace. According to Plutarch, Tiberius Gracchus was instrumental in bringing about the peace and saving 20,000 Roman soldiers. He returned home something of a hero, but Mancinus was put on trial by the senate, which refused to accept the treaty. While Gracchus and other lieutenants were saved by Scipio Aemilianus, the senate decreed that Mancinus be handed over to the Numantines, as some 20 Roman commanders were handed over to the Samnites after the defeat at the Caudine Forks in 321 BC. Plutarch does not relate Mancinus' further fate, but Appian noted that he was taken to Spain and handed over naked to the Numantines, but that they refused to accept him. He seems to have returned to Rome, where he took his seat in the senate, but in the following year, Publius Rutilius, one of the tribunes of the plebs, ordered him to vacate it, on the ground that when he had been surrendered to the Numantines, he had lost his Roman citizenship.