Senatus consultum ultimum
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Senatus consultum ultimum is the modern term given to resolutions of the Roman Senate lending its moral support for magistrates to use the full extent of their powers and ignore the laws to safeguard
A 1792 depiction of the death of Gaius Gracchus, who was driven to suicide after the passage against him of the first senatus consultum ultimum in 121 BC.
A senatus consultum ultimum was decreed against Octavian, pictured in a later bust, which became unenforceable when the senate's forces defected to Octavian's side.
Gaius Gracchus
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Gaius Sempronius Gracchus was a reformist Roman politician and soldier who lived during the 2nd century BC. He is best known for his plebeian tribunates in 123 and 122 BC, during which he proposed a w
Senatus consultum ultimum
…to laws. No laws were actually suspended; the senate merely lent its moral authority to defend a magistrate's extra-legal acts. First used against Gaius Gracchus in 121 BC to suppress a violent protest against repeal of a colonisation law and accepted thereafter, recourse to the decree accelerated over the course…
A bust of Gaius from a 19th century commemorative sculpture of the Gracchi brothers by Eugène Guillaume
Depiction of Gaius addressing the concilium plebis.