Optimates and Populares

Optimates and Populares, (Latin: respectively, “Best Ones,” or “Aristocrats”, and “Demagogues,” or “Populists”), two principal patrician political groups during the later Roman Republic from about 133 to 27 bc. The members of both groups belonged to the wealthier classes. The Optimates were the dominant group in the Senate. They blocked the wishes of the others, who were thus forced to seek tribunician support for their measures in the tribal assembly and hence were labeled Populares,...