Talk:Marcus Octavius (tribune of the plebs 133 BC)

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"The power of the Assembly and the Tribune was one of the factors that led to the decreasing influence of the Senate in Roman politics, one of the factors that led to the Roman civil wars and ultimately the fall of the Roman Republic."

A very manipulative formulation, meant to imply that Gracchus threatened the republic and Octavius defended it. Just because the eventual overthrow of the republic involved a defeat of the Senate aristocracy, doesn't mean that any action against the Senate aristocracy at any point in time was a step towards overthrowing the republic. Somehow, it is suggested here that increasing democracy, by reducing the powers of the aristocracy, inevitalby led to a monarchy. Then as now, the oligarchs love to say that any attempt to act against their interests and in favour of other citizens is tyrannical or will cause tyranny. Actually, it was precisely the policies of the Senate aristocracy that caused the social changes that eventually brought down the republic; they destroyed the very social base of their republic by pauperizing its social base of regular free citizen-warriors and replacing it with a mob of clients and a mercenary army that would eventually bring a dictator to power. The Gracchi were the only hope of the republic in the long run, but the elite would have none of that hope, being just as short-sighted in the pursuit of its egoistical anti-social interests as the elites of the present age. --91.148.130.233 (talk) 01:49, 29 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Given that the Senators personally murdered Gracchus, eliminated the last vestiges of popular sovereignty, and over the coming decades repeatedly used Senatus consultum ultimum to deprive the population of any protection of law and protect its own agents from legal accountability, the quoted statement is simply strange.81.31.212.124 (talk) 13:36, 1 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]