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Social Class In Ancient Rome

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In Ancient Rome, social class was based on hierarchy. Hierarchy essentially means that the people with the most power are the leaders of society. In society this ancient society you were either considered patrician or plebeian. The patricians had more freedom and where a higher class then the plebeians. The patricians were made up of the rulers of Rome and their families and the plebeians were basically everyone else that was not part of the ruling families. All of these classes were determined by the census. Also, there was a group of people that didn’t fall into either of these two categories. These were the slaves. The slaves did not have any rights and were treated as property. However, if they were ever to be freed they were able to …show more content…

For example, patricians were given greater representation in Roman elections. Patricians also had a great impact on religion in ancient Rome. Since they were seen as a higher class, there was a belief that they were better at speaking to the Roman gods. This illustrated the great importance that was given to the patricians because they were seen as the messengers of the gods in many cases. Another luxury the patrician class had was that they were the only class that was allowed to hold public office at first. This was changed however, because there were various uprisings that were held by the plebeians which lead to large groups of them boycotting the city. They did this until their demands were met and they were finally able to serve in public office after these protests. With this being said, there was clear tension between the two groups. The plebeians were doing the most work for the city while the patricians were taking the credit for their work. These various class differences angered the middle class, so there were more little protests that led to a smaller gap between classes. In the later eras of the Roman Empire, the patricians who were once much richer and more powerful started to decline. Some patricians even lost money and were impoverished in the later era. In many cases plebeians had more money than patricians. At this point, the classes in Rome didn’t matter as much as they once

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