structural:expansion
Agrarian reforms

The main goal of Tiberius' agrarian proposal was three-fold:

The purpose of the reform was to stimulate population growth and expand the number of people who would meet the property qualifications for service in the Roman army. The inclusion of the limit of 500 jugera was for the purpose of painting the law as a return to mos maiorum and the Sextian-Licinian rogations so to avoid any charges of novelty. Whether the Sextian-Licinian rogations in fact had such a clause is unclear; what mattered to Tiberius and his allies was that they believed it did.

Land distributed was likely done so with a prohibition on alienation and a vectigal (rent). Alienation was prohibited to prevent recipients from simply reselling the land. The vectigal served to allow the land to revert to the state if a citizen walked away from the allotment; reversion would then allow the state to settle someone else on the land. The veteres possessores (old possessors) also would receive security of tenure over their lands, up to the 500 or 1,000 jugera limit.

Tiberius was supported in his endeavour by likeminded aristocrats who also viewed the perceived problem of rural depopulation seriously – among those in support of the proposal were the consul of 133 BC, Publius Mucius Scaevola, and Scaevola's brother, Publius Licinius Crassus Dives Mucianus, – he may have been put up to pass the proposals by those allied statesmen. He was also successful in rallying large numbers of rural plebs to Rome to vote in favour of the plan. The proposals were likely not appealing to the urban plebs, who would not have had the agricultural skills necessary to capitalise on the programme.

He was opposed in the assembly by one of the other tribunes, Marcus Octavius. There were largely three grounds for opposition: first, the dispossession would harm the ruling classes of both Rome and the Italian allies; second, the law unfairly dispossessed people who had put money into the improvement of the land; third, that dispossession also would unsettle dowries pledged against the land and inheritances made under the assumption tenure was secure. When the vote arrived and Octavius interposed his tribunician veto, the matter was brought before the senate, but no settlement was reached. Unwilling to back down, Tiberius – unprecedentedly – had the assembly depose Octavius from office and vote the legislation through.