There was not just one man. There were many prominent people who took up this cause over the years: the Gracchi brothers, Gaius Marius, Lucius Appuleius Saturninus, Lucius Cornelius Cinna, Publius Clodius Pulcher, and Julius Caesar. During the First Triumvirate, Marcus Licinius Crassus and Pompey the Great sided with the populares, even though they had fought with the opposition party (the optimates) during the civil wars. Pompey then went back to the optimates after the triumvirate.