Patricians and plebeians

Early Roman society was marked by the division of the population into two distinct classes: the patrician nobility and the rest of the citizenry referred to as plebeians or plebs.

Several theories have been put forward attempting to explain the origins of this division, but very little can be said with certainty. A theory accepted by many modem scholars claims that the patricians were the descendants of the early clan patriarchs (patres) who formed the senate (senatus), the powerful council of elders which nominated and gave advice to the kings. The families which provided the early patres assumed a noble status as a class distinct from the rest of the population. This view seems to draw support from the fact that the term 'patres', which was originally confined only to senators, came in later years to be used as synonymous with the term 'patricii ' (members of the patrician class). But the distinction between patricians and plebeians may also be explained as having an economic basis. With the progressive differentiation of wealth, which began well before the city of Rome was founded, those few families which came to control large tracts of land assumed a predominant position in society and formed the inner circle of Roman nobility from which the 'fathers of the state' were chosen. Of course this does not preclude the possibility of ethnic differences being one of the reasons behind the accumulation of land in the hands of a few families.^{^[116]}

The early patrician aristocracy formed a closed order in society with clearly defined privileges based upon birth and the ownership of landed property. The members of this class enjoyed all the rights of the Roman citizenship (only they were Roman citizens in a full sense, or cives optima iuris), and monopolised all political power through their control of the senate, the popular assembly and the various state and religious offices.

Although the patrician nobility was initially a closed order, new families began to be admitted into it from the late sixth century BC. The opening up of Rome's privileged class continued throughout the early Republic, as manifested by the distinction between older or major patrician houses (patres maiorum gentium) and new or minor ones (patres minorum gentium).

The plebeian class, which constituted the great majority of Rome's population, was made up largely of small farmers, labourers, artisans and tradesmen. Although its members were regarded as free Roman citizens, initially they did not enjoy any of the public rights (iura publica) which the Roman citizenship entailed, such as the right to hold public office (ius honorum), whether political, military or religious. It is believed that they first acquired the right to vote in the assembly (ius suffragii) in the later years of the regal era (late sixth century BC), when they were included in the Roman classes as a result of the constitutional reforms attributed to king Servius Tullius. The important right of appealing from the magistrates to the assembly against certain severe forms of punishment (ius provocations) was probably first given to them shortly after the establishment of the Republic, in the late sixth century BC. Of the private rights (iura privata), the plebeians enjoyed the right of acquiring, holding and transferring property (ius commercii). But it appears that they did not have the right of contracting a regular Roman marriage (ius conubii) and, as a result, intermarriages between plebeians and patricians were forbidden.^{^[117]}

During the early part of the republican period the plebeian class continued to grow, whilst the old patrician aristocracy rapidly declined in numbers. And although, in general, the gap between the rich and the poor grew bigger, a number of plebeian families acquired considerable wealth and, from a position of strength, began to challenge the patricians' monopoly of political power.

For nearly two centuries after the establishment of the Republic Rome's internal history is marked by the struggle between the two classes. In the course of this contest (referred to as 'the struggle of the orders') the plebeians gradually removed all obstacles that stood in the way of their political emancipation and, with regard to civil rights, placed themselves on an equal footing with the patricians. But, as we will see later, it was only a political division of a particular kind that was removed, whilst the more fundamental division between the rich and the poor remained on the whole unaffected by the plebeians' success. In the years that followed the conclusion of the struggle of the orders the meaning of the term plebs gradually changed. During the last century of the republican era this term came to denote not a politically distinct social group but simply the whole mass of lowly and poverty-stricken citizens, in contradistinction with Rome's new nobility of wealth and office.^{^[118]}However, the old distinction between patrician and plebeian clans retained some importance. Although the highest offices of the state were now open to both patricians and plebeians alike, there were certain magistracies, such as that of the tribune of the plebeians (tribunus plebis), which remained, as a matter of constitutional principle, closed to men of patrician descent. At the same time, certain offices of a religious character^{^[119]} could only be held by members of traditional patrician clans.

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Source: Mousourakis George. The Historical and Institutional Context of Roman Law. Routledge,2003. — 480 p.. 2003

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