Plebeians
People Events Places In ancient Rome, the plebeians or plebs[1] were the general body of free Roman citizens who were not patricians, as determined by the census, or in other words "commoners".
In the annalistic tradition of Livy and Dionysius, the distinction between patricians and plebeians was as old as Rome itself, instituted by Romulus' appointment of the first hundred senators, whose descendants became the patriciate.
[6] Patricians also may have emerged from a nucleus of the rich religious leaders who formed themselves into a closed elite after accomplishing the expulsion of the kings.
[2] However, some scholars doubt that patricians monopolised the magistracies of the early republic, as plebeian names appear in the lists of Roman magistrates back to the fifth century BC.
[2] The Conflict of the Orders (Latin: ordo meaning "social rank") refers to a struggle by plebeians for full political rights from the patricians.
[18] By 287, with the passage of the lex Hortensia, plebiscites – or laws passed by the concilium plebis – were made binding on the whole Roman people.
[21] Substantial portions of the rhetoric put into the mouths of the plebeian reformers of the early Republic are likely imaginative reconstructions reflecting the late republican politics of their writers.
[8] Contradicting claims that plebs were excluded from politics from the fall of the monarchy, plebeians appear in the consular lists during the early fifth century BC.
[8] The form of the state may also have been substantially different, with a temporary ad hoc "senate", not taking on fully classical elements for more than a century from the republic's establishment.
[23] There was substantial convergence in this class of people, with a complex culture of preserving the memory of and celebrating one's political accomplishments and those of one's ancestors.
[26] No contemporary definition of nobilis or novus homo (a person entering the nobility) exists; Mommsen, positively referenced by Brunt (1982), said the nobiles were patricians, patrician whose families had become plebeian (in a conjectural transitio ad plebem), and plebeians who had held curule offices (e.g., dictator, consul, praetor, and curule aedile).
[29] The new focus on the consulship "can be directly related to the many other displays of pedigree and family heritage that became increasingly common after Sulla" and with the expanded senate and number of praetors diluting the honour of the lower offices.
In the later Republic, the term lost its indication of a social order or formal hereditary class, becoming used instead to refer to citizens of lower socio-economic status.
[33] Throughout Roman society at all levels including plebeians, the paterfamilias (oldest male in the family) held ultimate authority over household manners.
[37] Plebeian men wore a tunic, generally made of wool felt or inexpensive material, with a belt at the waist, as well as sandals.
[41] Plebeians who resided in urban areas had to often deal with job insecurity, low pay, unemployment and high prices[34] along with underemployment.
Cicero wrote in the late republican period that he estimated the average laborer working in the city of Rome earned 6 1/2 denarii a day which was 5 times what a provincial worker would make.
By middle of the 1st century CE this number was higher because of inflation but however the high cost of living in the city of Rome kept the value of real wages down.
[33] Some plebeians would sell themselves into slavery or their children in order to have access to wealthy households and to them hopefully advance socially along with getting a chance to have an education.
Potential recruits needed to meet a variety of requirements as well which included: being male, at least 172 centimetres (5.64 ft) tall, enlist before one was 35, having a letter of recommendation and completing training.
In British, Irish, Australian, New Zealand and South African English, the back-formation pleb, along with the more recently derived adjectival form plebby,[44] is used as a derogatory term for someone considered unsophisticated, uncultured,[45] or lower class.
