Tiberius had come from great Roman stock. His grandfather had been Scipio, the conqueror of Hannibal and his father a respected soldier in Spain. As a quaestor in Spain (assistant to the consul), he saw problems particularly in regard to the treatment of soldiers returning to their farms. He even went so far as to state:
When he became a tribune, he doubled the limit of land allowed for landowners; the remainder of the land was given to the landless. He made a key error in judgement however: instead of submitting his proposals to the Senate, he took them to the Tribal Assembly. The Senate countered by influencing a tribune to veto the legislation.
Tiberius turned around and persuaded the Assembly to depose the tribune on the grounds that he was blocking the will of the people. After this, the new land act passed. The Senate reacted violently to this because it went against their views. As a repercussion, they ordered the murder of Tiberius and 300 of his supporters.
Gaius Gracchus was even more intense than his older brother. He was elected a tribune in 123 B.C. and was re-elected again the following year without even proclaiming candidacy.
During Gaius' time, Rome was in some trouble. There was very little public spending, no tribute flowed into Rome and grain prices were sharply rising. To compound the problems, living conditions in Rome were very poor; for example, people were crammed into multi-storied apartment buildings with little food. Gaius made 5 key reforms during this time:
The Senate put up a rival tribune who promised more of everything that Gaius had promised. This tactic worked. Gaius was not re-elected tribune and later 3000 of his supporters were murdered.
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