by the time tiberius gracchus came onto the scene in the 2nd century bce, rome was a superpower dealing with the fallout of rapid expansion. wealth was flooding in, but it wasn’t trickling down. instead, it was pooling at the top, in the hands of the senatorial elite, while the average roman farmer was being squeezed out. tiberius, a scion of the gracchi family, saw this inequality and decided to do something about it. his land reform proposals aimed to redistribute the vast tracts of public land held by the elite to the landless poor. this wasn’t just about altruism; it was about stabilizing the republic by addressing the socioeconomic divide. but the senate, dominated by the wealthy elite, was having none of it. they saw tiberius not just as a reformer, but as a threat to their power and privilege. and so began the breakdown of norms. tiberius bypassed the senate and took his proposals directly to the people through the tribal assembly. this was technically legal but highly unorthodox, and it set a dangerous precedent. the situation escalated when tiberius sought re-election as tribune, something that was unprecedented and seen as a power grab. the senators accused him of aiming for tyranny. in 133 bce, the tension boiled over. a mob of senators, led by pontifex maximus scipio nasica, stormed the assembly. in a shocking breach of the norm against violence in the political arena, they clubbed tiberius and his supporters to death, using table legs and other improvised weapons. — something to keep in mind as norms of discourse go all to hell