Social class in ancient Rome

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Not to be confused with Status in Roman legal system.
Example of higher class Roman men

hierarchical, with multiple and overlapping social hierarchies. An individual's relative position in one might be higher or lower than in another, which complicated the social composition of Rome.[1]

The status of freeborn Romans during the Republic was established by:

  • Ancestry (
    plebeian
    ).
  • equestrian
    ranks elevated above the ordinary citizen.
  • Gender.
  • Citizenship, of which there were grades with varying rights and privileges.

The different Roman classes allowed for different rights and privileges, including voting rights, marriage rights, and more.

Patricians and plebeians

Further information: Nobiles and Novus homo

Traditionally,

plebeian refers to lower class.[2] Economic differentiation saw a small number of families accumulate most of the wealth in Rome, thus giving way to the creation of the patrician and plebeian classes.[2] After this initial distinction, however, the divide between patrician and plebeian families was strictly hereditary, based on social status.[2]

The toga and calceus, shown here on a statue restored with the head of Nerva, was the distinctive garb of Roman male citizens.

The plebeians constituted the majority of

BC, the divide between patricians and plebeians had lost most of its distinction and began to merge into one class.[3]

Patrician

Main article: Patrician (ancient Rome)

Patricians were considered the upper class in early Roman society. They controlled the best land and made up the majority of the

census, appointed senators, and oversaw other aspects of social and political life. Through the censors, patricians were able to maintain their status over the plebeians.[2]

Plebeians

Main article: Plebeians

Plebeians were the lower class of Rome, laborers and farmers who mostly worked land owned by the patricians. Some plebeians owned small plots of land, but this was rare until the second century BC.[2] Plebeians were tied to patricians through the clientela system of patronage that saw plebeians assisting their patrician patrons in war, augmenting their social status, and raising dowries or ransoms.[2] Plebeians were barred from marrying patricians in 450 BC but this law was annulled five years later in 445 BC by a tribune of the plebs.[2][page needed] In 444 BC, the office of military tribune with consular powers was created. The plebeians who filled this office were then entitled to join the senate after their one-year term was completed.[2][page needed] For the most part, however, plebeians remained dependent on those of higher social class for the entirety of the existence of ancient Rome.[2][page needed]

Property-based classes

Further information:
Centuriate Assembly, and later on in the republic, membership of the senatorial class was also based on property. The senatorial class had the highest property threshold. The Centuriate Assembly was responsible for declaring war, for electing magistrates with imperium, and for trying select cases.[2]

Equestrian statue of Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius from 176 AD. This statue is believed to be from the Capitoline Hill
in Rome, and is the only equestrian statue that survives.

Only Romans who were wealthy enough to afford their own armour were allowed to serve in the army, which consisted of both patricians and plebeians. As long as a citizen could afford armour, he was able to be a soldier.[2] The Centuriate Assembly was divided into groups based on how wealthy one was and one’s ability to provide his armour and weapons.

Centuriate Assembly[2][6]
Class Centuries / Votes Census property Equipment
Equestrians 18 Horse, full armour, various weapons
Class I 80 100,000 As Full armour, some weapons
Class II 20 75,000 As Almost full armour, some weapons
Class III 20 50,000 As Some armour, few weapons
Class IV 20 25,000 As Little armour, few weapons
Class V 30 11,000 As No armour, single weapon
Proletariate 5 None
Total centuries / votes 193

The Equestrians and Class I held 98 votes between them, thus they could outvote the combined lower classes who only had 95 votes. This was a means for the wealthier classes to maintain control over the army and social life.[2]

Gender-based classes

Pater Familias

Roman society was patriarchal in the purest sense; the male head of household was the pater familias, he held special legal powers and privileges that gave him jurisdiction (patria potestas) over all the members of his familia.[2] Fathers were in charge of educating their sons. Additionally, adult sons would often marry and continue to live in the family household under their pater familias, until their father died and they took over the responsibility of pater familias.[2] The pater familias could also perform an emancipatio (emancipation) ritual - a process that set the son free, three times in a row - to grant the son his own legal authority, free from the pater familias.[2]

A painting of Lucretia, the ideal Roman woman from the Roman tale, The Death of Lucretia.

Women

Free-born women in ancient Rome were citizens (cives), but could not vote or hold political office. Women were under exclusive control of their pater familias, which was either their father, husband, or sometimes their eldest brother.[2] Women, and their children, took on the social status of their pater familias. Women were not included in the political sphere, and they had little influence outside the home. However, women of wealthier families had more political power than poorer women as they were able to exert their influence behind the scenes of public, political actions.[7]

There were three early forms of marriage that transferred Roman women from one pater familias to another. The first,

coemptio, represented the purchase of the bride.[2][8] This oldest form of marriage required five witnesses and an official, and was treated as a business transaction.[8] The second, usus, occurred after one year of intimacy between a man and a woman.[8] If the woman did not leave the man for three nights following the year, she became the man's possession and he became her pater familias. If the woman left before the three nights were over, she would return to her family. The relationship would still be valid, but the man would not become her pater familias.[8] The last form of marriage, confarreatio, was the closest to modern marriage. Confarreatio was a religious ceremony that consisted of the bride and groom sharing bread in front of religious officials and other witnesses.[8]

By the end of the second century CE, marriages sine manu were the standard form of marriage.[2] Through a marriage sine manu, women did not fall under the legal jurisdictions of their new husbands or their fathers. They controlled their own property (usually their dowry) after the death of their father.[2] Men still had to sign any paperwork on behalf of their women, but there were now two economic units in the marriage. Moreover, divorce could be initiated by either man or woman, often by saying "I divorce you" three times while in front of witnesses.[2]

The legal status of a mother as a citizen affected her son's citizenship. The phrase ex duobus civibus Romanis natos (“children born of two Roman citizens”) indicates that a Roman woman was regarded as having citizen status, in specific contrast to a peregrina.

Slavery and freed men

Slaves

Slaves (servi) were not citizens, and lacked even the legal standing accorded free-born foreigners. Slaves were seen as property, and they were bought and sold like any other good in Rome.

Graecia capta ferum victorem cepit ("Captured Greece took her savage conqueror captive"). The Roman playwright Terence is thought to have been brought to Rome as a slave. Thus slavery was regarded as a circumstance of birth, misfortune, or war; it was defined in terms of legal status, or rather the lack thereof, and was neither limited to or defined by ethnicity or race, nor regarded as an inescapably permanent condition. Slavery was more prominent in Roman antiquity than anywhere else in the ancient world, save for Greece.[9]

Slaves who lacked skills or education performed agricultural or other forms of manual labor. More slaves were tasked with agricultural labour than any other form of work.[9] Those who were violent or disobedient, or who for whatever reason were considered a danger to society, might be sentenced to labor in the mines, where they suffered under inhumane conditions. Slave owners were allowed to return their slaves for their money back if they were found to be defective, or if the seller had concealed anything that would affect the slave's productivity.[3] Slaves that were found to be sick or defective would often be sold for very little, if anything.[3] Masters would occasionally manumit sick or elderly slaves as a way to save money if they would not fetch enough money from their sale because it was cheaper than feeding and housing a useless slave. Since slaves were legally property, they could be disposed of by their owners at any time.

All children born to female slaves were slaves. Slaves who had the education or skills to earn a living were often manumitted upon the death of their owner as a condition of his will.[3] Slaves who conducted business for their masters were also permitted to earn and save money for themselves, and some might be able to buy their own freedom, while still others were granted their freedom by their owners — though this was rare.[3]

Freed men

Freed men (liberti) were freed slaves who, once freed, became full Roman citizens, however they were not considered equal to other citizens because of their former status as slaves or their descent from former slaves, thus they joined the ranks of the lower-class plebeians.[2] Only after a few generations would the descendants of former slaves be able to rise through the ranks of the classes (sometimes becoming equites or senators).[3] The status of liberti developed throughout the Republic as their number increased. Through their military service, and through other endeavours such as craftsmanship and business ventures, freed men often accumulated vast fortunes in the later Republic.[3] Despite the fortunes of these many liberti, throughout ancient Rome the majority of freed men were plebeians and worked as farmers or tradesmen.[3]

Non-Roman citizens

The Orator, c. 100 BC, an Etrusco-Roman bronze sculpture depicting Aule Metele (Latin: Aulus Metellus), an Etruscan man wearing a Roman toga while engaged in rhetoric; the statue features an inscription in the Etruscan alphabet

Latin Right

Latin Rights, or

Jus Latii, are the rights given to Latin allies and Latin colonies of Rome.[10]

Old Latin Rights

Latin allies were given the right to intermarry, conduct business, and enter into contracts with full Roman citizens, and the right to move from an allied Latin city to Rome (or vice versa).[10] Children of full Roman citizens and Latin mothers could inherit the Roman property and citizenship of their fathers through the Latin League, before 338 BC.[10] Those with Latin rights had a privileged status above other Roman allies who were not full Roman citizens.[11]

Latin Rights post-338 BC

The citizens of 5 Latin towns (Aricia, Lanuvium, Pedum, Nomentum, and Antium) were given full Roman citizenship in 338 BC, after the end of the Latin War. The rest of the Latin allies were given limited Roman citizenship, receiving the privileges of the Old Latin Rights, but not being granted the right to vote or obtain Roman property unless they relocated permanently to the city of Rome.[10]

Peregrini

Free-born foreign subjects were known as

Antonine Constitution.[12]

References

  1. ^ Koenraad Verboven. (2007). The Associative Empire. Athenaeum 95, p. 861.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac Mathisen, Ralph (2019). Ancient Roman Civilization: History and Sources. Oxford University Press. [page needed]
  3. ^
    JSTOR 590734
    .
  4. ^ Joannes Zonaras, Extracts of History, §7.9.
  5. ^ Purser, Louis Claude (1890), "Calceus", A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, London: William Wayte.
  6. ^ Polybius VI.19, 20; Livy I.43
  7. ISBN 978-0-521-85453-5
  8. ^ a b c d e "Marriage and love life in ancient Rome « IMPERIUM ROMANUM". IMPERIUM ROMANUM. Retrieved 2020-03-26.
  9. ^
    doi:10.1163/15692060260289707
    – via EBSCO.
  10. ^
    JSTOR 4344123
    .
  11. S2CID 162797410
    .
  12. ^
    JSTOR 10.1086/ahr.111.4.1011
    .
  13. ISBN 978-3-319-41978-7

External links
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