According to some observers, Optimates are the right wing of the political spectrum, while Populares are the left wing of the political spectrum.
This definition may be quick and easy to understand, but it is misleading, because it is not a good idea to use modern concepts like left wing and right wing to describe events which happened in antiquity.
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Optimates = what does this word mean?
It means the best.
The members of this political faction used this word to describe themselves. They said: We are the best. We know how to govern. We know how to rule.
Populares = what does this word mean?
It means the people who support the people.
Optimates wanted the Senate to dominate political, economic and military decisions.
Why?
Because the members of this political faction often had a solid majority in the Senate.
Populares knew they were often the minority in the Senate. They wanted the popular assemblies to dominate political, economic and military decisions.
Why?
Because they had many clients. They could expect a majority of the voters to vote for their proposals in the popular assemblies.
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When did the split between the two factions Optimates and Populares begin?
The split began in the second century BC, when Tiberius Gracchus and his younger brother Gajus Gracchus tried to reform the Roman Republic.
Both brothers were magistrates. They were chosen to be a Tribune of the People = tribunus plebis.
Tiberius was Tribune in 133 BC. He made some proposals regarding the distribution of land. He suggested that unused land owned by rich people could and should be given to poor people.
He said his proposal would help poor people become useful farmers. He also said that rich people would not suffer. They would still be rich people.
But the rich people were horrified. They saw this proposal as an attack on their privileges. When his proposal was adopted, they organised a mob which attacked and killed Tiberius.
The proposal was not implemented, because Tiberius was dead.
The younger brother Gajus was Tribune in 123 and 122 BC. He supported the same ideas as his brother. He presented a similar plan.
Once again, the rich people were horrified. When his plan was adopted, the rich people organised a mob which attacked and killed Gajus in 121 BC.
The proposal was not implemented, because Gajus was dead.
The time of Tiberius and Gajus Gracchus was the moment when two political factions were established in the Roman Republic.
Populares supported the two brothers and their plan, while Optimates opposed the two brothers and their plan
The conflict between the two factions continued for one hundred years
The time around the year 100 BC
Optimates
A famous representative is Sulla
His full name is Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix
(138-78 BC)
Populares
A famous representative is Marius
His full name is Gajus Marius
(157-86 BC)
The time towards the end of the Roman Republic
Optimates =
Two well-known persons are Cato Minor and Cicero
Populares =
A well-known person is Caesar
Pompeius (known as Pompey in English) was not sure about his position. In 60 BC, he joined Caesar and Crassus in an alliance known as the first triumvirate, but later he broke with Caesar and decided to support Optimates.
During the 50s BC, the conflict between the two factions was not only a political discussion in the Roman Senate. It was also, occasionally, an armed battle in the streets of Rome.
The Optimates had some street gangs who harassed supporters of Populares.
The Populares had some street gangs who harassed supporters of Optimates
The gangs who supported Optimates were controlled by Titus Annius Milo, while the gangs who supported Populares was controlled by Publius Clodius Pulcher.
In January 52 BC, the two leaders Milo and Clodius came face to face with each other on Via Appia, near Bovillae, ca. 20 km southeast of Rome. The confrontation ended when Clodius was killed by Milo.
Cicero defended Milo in a court of law when he was accused of murder. According to Cicero, Milo had acted in self-defence. Cicero was an experienced lawyer who had won many cases. But this time, he was not successful. He lost the case.
Milo was found guilty of murder. He had to leave Rome. He had to go into exile. He lived in Massilia (present-day Marseille) until his death in 48 BC.
The Roman Republic was beginning to fall apart. The political conflict between the two factions turned into a brutal civil war in 49 BC. The civil war ended in 45 BC. But a new conflict began when Gajus Julius Caesar was assassinated in 44 BC.
The conflict between Optimates and Populares did not end until the time when the Roman Republic disappeared.
The conflict finally ended when Caesar's heir Octavian defeated Marcus Antonius in 31 BC and when he accepted the title Augustus in 27 BC.
This was 100 years since the conflict began with the two brothers Tiberius and Gajus Gracchus who tried to reform the Roman Republic.
REFERENCES
# 1. Some links
# 2. A book
Violence in Republican Rome
By Andrew Lintott
(1968)
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A Roman denarius
(obverse and reverse)
issued by Gaius Minucius Augurinus
in 135 BC
The images on this coin
show the distribution of grain
to poor people in Rome.
This topic was often mentioned
by members of the Populares faction
during political agitation
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This modern drawing
shows three Roman senators
wearing the traditional toga
*****
This statue of the two brothers
Tiberius and Gajus Gracchus
was created in the 19th century
by the French sculptor
Jean Baptiste Eugène Guillaume
(1822-1905)
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