Conflict of the Orders

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The Conflict of the Orders, also Struggle of the Orders, was a political struggle between the

At first, only patricians were allowed to stand for election to political office, but over time these laws were revoked, and eventually all offices were opened to the plebeians. Since most individuals who were elected to political office were given membership in the

The Era of Patricians (494–367 BC)

The Conflict of the Orders began less than 20 years after the Republic was founded. Under the existing system, the poorer plebeians made up the bulk of the Roman army. During their military service, the farms on which their livelihood depended were left abandoned. Unable to earn a sufficient income, many turned to the patricians for aid, which left them open to abuse and even enslavement. As the patricians controlled Roman politics, the plebeians found no help from within the existing political system. Their solution was to go on strike. In 494 BC Rome was at war with three Italic tribes (the

During the 5th century BC, there were a number of unsuccessful attempts to reform Roman agrarian laws to distribute newly conquered territories amongst the plebs. In a number of instances, these reforms were advocated by the plebeian tribunes.

In 471 BC, the

During the early years of the republic, the plebeians were not allowed to hold magisterial office. While the plebeian tribunes regularly attempted to block legislation unfavorable to their order, the patricians frequently tried to thwart them by gaining the support of another tribune. One example of this occurred in 448 BC when only five tribunes were elected to fill ten positions; following tradition and pressured by the patricians, they co-opted five colleagues, two of whom were patricians. Concerns that the patricians would attempt to influence future elections in this manner, or by obtaining the office themselves to prevent the plebeian tribunes from exercising their powers, led to the passage of the Lex Trebonia, forbidding the plebeian tribunes from co-opting their colleagues in the future.^[3]

In 445 BC, the plebeians demanded the right to stand for election as

Under the new system, newly elected magistrates were awarded with automatic membership in the Senate, although it remained difficult for a plebeian from an unknown family to enter the Senate. On the rare occasion that an individual of an unknown family (ignobilis) was elected to high office, it was usually due to the unusual character of that individual, as was the case for both Gaius Marius and Marcus Tullius Cicero.^[17] Several factors made it difficult for individuals from unknown families to be elected to high office, in particular the very presence of a long-standing nobility, as this appealed to the deeply rooted Roman respect for the past.^[17] In addition, elections were expensive, neither senators nor magistrates were paid, and the Senate often did not reimburse magistrates for expenses associated with their official duties. Therefore, an individual usually had to be independently wealthy before seeking high office.^[17] Ultimately, a new patricio-plebeian aristocracy (nobilitas) emerged,^[17] which replaced the old patrician nobility. It was the dominance of the long-standing patrician nobility which ultimately forced the plebeians to wage their long struggle for political power. The new nobility, however, was fundamentally different from the old nobility.^[18] The old nobility existed through the force of law, because only patricians were allowed to stand for high office, and it was ultimately overthrown after those laws were changed. Now, however, the new nobility existed due to the organization of society, and as such, it could only be overthrown through a revolution.^[18]

The Conflict of the Orders was finally coming to an end, since the plebeians had achieved political equality with the patricians.^[18][19] A small number of plebeian families had achieved the same standing that the old aristocratic Patrician families had always had, but these new plebeian aristocrats were as uninterested in the plight of the average plebeian as the old patrician aristocrats had always been.^[18] During this time period, the plebeian plight had been mitigated due to the constant state of war that Rome was in.^[20] These wars provided employment, income, and glory for the average plebeian, and the sense of patriotism that resulted from these wars also eliminated any real threat of plebeian unrest. The lex Publilia, which had required the election of at least one plebeian censor every five years, contained another provision. Before this time, any bill passed by an assembly could only become a law after the patrician senators gave their approval. This approval came in the form of an auctoritas patrum ("authority of the fathers").^[21] The lex Publilia modified this process, requiring the auctoritas patrum to be passed before a law could be voted on by one of the assemblies, rather than after the law had already been voted on.^[22] It is not known why, but this modification seems to have made the auctoritas patrum irrelevant.^[23]

By 287 BC, the economic condition of the average plebeian had become poor. The problem appears to have centered around widespread indebtedness,^[24] and the plebeians quickly demanded relief. The senators, most of whom belonged to the creditor class, refused to abide by the demands of the plebeians, and the result was the final plebeian secession. The Plebeians seceded to the Janiculum Hill, and to end the secession, a dictator named Quintus Hortensius was appointed. Hortensius, a plebeian, passed the lex Hortensia which ended the requirement that an auctoritas patrum be passed before any bill could be considered by either the Plebeian Council or the Tribal Assembly.^[24] The requirement was not changed for the Centuriate Assembly. The Hortensian Law also reaffirmed the principle that an act of the Plebeian Council have the full force of law over both plebeians and patricians, which it had originally acquired as early as 449 BC.^[23] The importance of the Hortensian law was in that it removed from the patrician senators their final check over the Plebeian Council.^[25]

Historicity

The traditional account was long accepted as factual, but it has a number of problems and inconsistencies, and almost every element of the story is controversial today. For instance, the fasti report a number of consuls with plebeian names during the 5th century BC, when the consulate was supposedly only open to patricians, and explanations to the effect that previously patrician gentes somehow became plebeians later are difficult to prove. Another point of difficulty is the apparent absence of armed revolt; as the history of the late Republic shows, similar types of grievances tended to lead to bloodshed rather quickly, yet Livy's account seems to entail debate mostly, with the occasional threat of secessio. None of this is helped by our basic uncertainty as to who the plebs actually were; many of them are known to have been wealthy landowners, and the "lower class" label dates from the late Republic.^{[26][page needed]}

Some scholars, such as Richard E. Mitchell, have even argued that there was no conflict at all, the Romans of the late Republic having interpreted events of their distant past as if they were comparable to the class struggles of their own time. The crux of the problem is that there is no contemporaneous account of the conflict; writers such as Polybius, who might have met persons whose grandparents participated in the conflict, do not mention it (which may not be surprising, since Polybius' history covered a period after the conflict), while the writers who do speak of the conflict, such as Livy or Cicero, are sometimes thought to have reported fact and fable equally readily, and sometimes assume that there were no fundamental changes in Roman institutions in nearly 500 years.

See also

Notes