L’evoluzione della élite popularis dai Gracchi a Cesare

This paper starts analyzing the élite of the factio popularis at the time of the Gracchi: they were nobiles only. In the next generation, that of Saturninus, we find a few nobiles among his followers, but a great attention was deserved to the needs of the Marian army. Then, the factio Cinnana was constituted by a majority of new citizens of Italian origin. After Sulla the popularis élite survived in Spain under Sertorius. At last Caesar provided it with its revenge and organized his government around a group of amici, within which there were some domi nobiles, a lot of Italians (above all Etruscans) and already some equites ex provinciis.