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. Modern hypotheses date the distinction "anywhere from the regal period to the late fifth century" BC. The 19th-century historian
Barthold Georg Niebuhr believed plebeians were possibly foreigners immigrating from
other parts of Italy. This hypothesis, that plebeians were racially distinct from patricians, however, is not supported by the ancient evidence. Alternatively, the patriciate may have been defined by their monopolisation of hereditary priesthoods that granted
ex officio membership in the senate. 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. In the early
Roman Republic, there are attested 43 clan names, of which 10 are plebeian with 17 of uncertain status. There existed an aristocracy of wealthy families in the regal period, but "a clear-cut distinction of
birth does not seem to have become important before the foundation of the Republic". The literary sources hold that in the early Republic, plebeians were excluded from
magistracies, religious
colleges, and the
Senate. 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. It is likely that patricians, over the course of the first half of the fifth century, were able to close off high political office from plebeians and exclude plebeians from permanent social integration through marriage. Plebeians were enrolled into the
curiae and the tribes; they also served in the army and also in army officer roles as
tribuni militum.
Conflict of the Orders The Conflict of the Orders ( meaning "social rank") refers to a struggle by plebeians for full political rights from the patricians. According to Roman tradition, shortly after the establishment of the Republic, plebeians objected to their exclusion from power and exploitation by the patricians. The plebeians were able to achieve their political goals by a series of secessions from the city: "a combination of mutiny and a strike". Ancient Roman tradition claimed that the Conflict led to laws being published, written down, and given open access starting in 494 BC with the law of the
Twelve Tables, which also introduced the concept of equality before the law, often referred to in Latin as
libertas, which became foundational to republican politics. This succession also forced the creation of
plebeian tribunes with authority to defend plebeian interests. Following this, there was a period of
consular tribunes who shared power between plebeians and patricians in various years, but the consular tribunes apparently were not endowed with religious authority. In 445 BC, the
lex Canuleia permitted intermarriage among plebeians and patricians. There was a radical reform in 367–366 BC, which abolished consular tribunes and "laid the foundation for a system of government led by two consuls, shared between patricians and plebeians" over the religious objections of patricians, requiring at least one of the consuls to be a plebeian. And after 342 BC, plebeians regularly attained the consulship.
Debt bondage was abolished in 326, freeing plebeians from the possibility of slavery by patrician creditors. 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. Moreover, it banned senatorial vetoes of plebeian council laws. And also around the year 300 BC, the priesthoods also were shared between patricians and plebeians, ending the "last significant barrier to plebeian emancipation". The veracity of the traditional story is profoundly unclear: "many aspects of the story as it has come down to us must be wrong, heavily modernised ... or still much more myth than history". 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. Contradicting claims that plebs were excluded from politics from the fall of the monarchy, plebeians appear in the consular lists during the early 5th century BC. 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.
Noble plebeians The completion of plebeian political emancipation was founded on a republican ideal dominated by
nobiles, who were defined not by caste or heredity, but by their accession to the high offices of state, elected from both patrician and plebeian families. 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. This culture also focused considerably on achievements in terms of war and personal merit. Throughout the
Second Samnite War (326–304 BC), plebeians who had risen to power through these social reforms began to acquire the aura of ''
("nobility", also "fame, renown"), marking the creation of a ruling elite of nobiles''. From the mid-4th century to the early 3rd century BC, several plebeian–patrician "
tickets" for the consulship repeated joint terms, suggesting a deliberate political strategy of cooperation. 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). Becoming a senator after election to a quaestorship did not make a man a
nobilis, only those who were entitled to a
curule seat were
nobiles. However, by the time of
Cicero in the post-Sullan Republic, the definition of
nobilis had shifted. Now,
nobilis came to refer only to former consuls and the direct relatives and male descendants thereof. 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. A person becoming
nobilis by election to the consulate was a
novus homo (a new man).
Marius and
Cicero are notable examples of
novi homines (new men) in the late Republic, when many of Rome's richest and most powerful men – such as
Lucullus,
Marcus Crassus, and
Pompey – were plebeian nobles.
Later history 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. By the early empire, the word was used to refer to people who were not senators (of the empire or of the local municipalities) or
equestrians. ==Life==