[And Magaizine Via Whatfinger] Tiberius Gracchus was a Roman politician and official in the Second Century BC. Gracchus was a member of the populares, a faction that sided with the plebian — the common people — against the conservative aristocratic patricians who had traditionally held power in Rome.At the time of Gracchus the small independent farmers of the Roman Republic were increasingly feeling economic pressure from the concentration of public lands into giant estates held by aristocrats. Rome, a nation whose strength had also been built on a class of free, independent men was now increasingly owned and controlled by a strata of oligarchs.
Tiberius Gracchus proposed reforms to break up the giant estates and redistribute the land to average Romans. He was vehemently opposed to the aristocrats and made no secret of his intention to destroy their power. He was aggressive. He was loud. He threatened the entire power structure of those who believed the Republic belonged to them.
Gracchus had to be destroyed by any means necessary. On the pretext that he intended to make himself king he was attacked in a public marketplace and beaten to death by a mob led by Roman Senators and their allies.
The article doesn't continue with the aftermath; his successor (a brother) took over his mantle and pretty much destroyed the remains of the Republic leading to Caesar and Imperial Rome.