L’evoluzione della élite popularis dai Gracchi a Cesare

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