Over the past century the Republic had undergone a massive transformation without any comprehensive attempt to refit the ship of state to survive the new waters within which it sailed. Where Tiberius had proposed a single piece of radical agrarian legislation to blunt the effects of rising economic inequality, Gaius dreamed of an entire slate of reforms to ameliorate the most destabilizing aspects of Rome’s imperial expansion. Gaius Gracchus had a dream, and this dream would lead him to share one life with his brother and die a champion of the people.

