a great tumultuous crowd and unfit to pass legislation. Yet senate governance had become so corrupt that a person who would replace it "might benefit the commonwealth more than he injured it. ¶ But such a bold player Tiberius Gracchus was not. He was a tolerably capable, thoroughly well-meaning, conservative patriot, who simply did not know what he was doing." Angry aristocrats from the senate caught and clubbed to death Gracchus; 300 other reformers died with him. The senate then closed ranks, saying that Tiberius Gracchus "had wished to seize the crown." Yet the land commission mandated by the reform law of Tiberius was allowed to meet and for several years managed to substantially increase the number of small farmers who owned their own land. Scipio Aemilianus (184–129), an in-law and adopted grandson of Scipio Africanus and thus cousin to the Gracchi, played an ambiguous rôle. A good soldier, fine orator, trustworthy, and known for steadfast probity, his politics put him in between the aristocracy and the reformers. Against the oligarchy he brought the ballot to criminal proceedings before popular tribunals. Yet he mostly opposed land reforms; "rightly or wrongly, the remedy seemed to him worse than the disease." Eventually on behalf of allied Latin landowners he influenced the termination of the land commission. As a result he, too, was assassinated—probably by a land reformer. Gaius Gracchus (154–121). Gaius was the younger brother of Tiberius Gracchus, and the second son of Cornelia. Gaius set himself the project of reforming the constitutional order of the Senate and People of Rome. {Under construction} Gaius Marius (157–86). "Son of a poor day-labourer" in an Italian village, Marius was "reared at the plough". He joined the army as soon as he could. Noted for his ability and fine appearance, he served during campaigns in Hispania and by age 23 became an officer. Back home, he planned an army career, but regardless of merit he "could not attain those political offices, which alone led to the higher military posts, without wealth and without connections. The young officer acquired both by fortunate commercial speculations and by his union with a maiden of the ancient patrician clan of the Julii." In 115 he served as praetor and in 107 as consul. In Africa he then led an army; serving under him was Sulla, who captured Jugurtha which ended the war. Again Marius became consul, for an unprecedented