Social class in ancient Rome
[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] By the second century BC, the divide between patricians and plebeians had lost most of its distinction and began to merge into one class.
[2][page needed] In appearance, they were chiefly distinguished from the plebs by their dyed and ornamented shoes (calceus patricius).
[4][5] A common type of social relation in ancient Rome was the clientela system that involved a patron and client(s) that performed services for one another and who were engaged in strong business-like relationships.
[2] This patronage system was one of the class relations that most tightly bound Roman society together, while also protecting patrician social privileges.
[2] Clientela continued into the late Roman society, spanning almost the entirety of the existence of ancient Rome.
[2] Plebeians were the lower class of Rome, laborers and farmers who mostly worked land owned by the patricians.
[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]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.
[2] The Centuriate Assembly was divided into groups based on how wealthy one was and one’s ability to provide his armour and weapons.
[2] Free-born women in ancient Rome were citizens (cives), but could not vote or hold political office.
[3] For the most part, slaves descended from debtors and from prisoners of war, especially women and children captured during sieges and other military campaigns in Greece, Italy, Spain, and Carthage.
In the later years of the Republic and into the Empire, more slaves came from newly conquered areas of Gaul, Britain, North Africa, and Asia Minor.
[3] Many slaves were created as the result of Rome's conquest of Greece, but Greek culture was considered in some respects superior to that of Rome: hence Horace's famous remark Graecia capta ferum victorem cepit ("Captured Greece took her savage conqueror captive").
[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.
Through their military service, and through other endeavours such as craftsmanship and business ventures, freedmen often accumulated vast fortunes in the later Republic.
[3] Despite the fortunes of these many liberti, throughout ancient Rome the majority of freedmen were plebeians and worked as farmers or tradesmen.
– 14 AD) instituted laws that allowed peregrini to become citizens through serving in the Roman army or on a city council.
