Introduction During the time of the Tárquin kings, Rome did much to consolidate the city, promoting the temples, building streets and sewers, draining the land, raising and fortifying the city walls, and organizing the original Roman tribes (Morey, 1901, p.21). In those early days, the three tribes were made up of old families who held all the governing power of the city. They were call Patricians. Over time another class arose, who had no governing power, and those were the Plebeians (Morey, 1901, p.23). This paper will discuss how the economic and political differences between the patricians and the plebeian classes ultimately led to a plebeian revolt. The conflict between Plebeians and Patricians Like nearly all civilizations, Rome emerged …show more content…
It is a very common model of cooperation among otherwise antagonistic groups to defeat a more hated enemy, as Athens and Sparta saw with the Persian invasion (Brand, n.d.). But in a similar way, the source of the original antagonism is not automatically abated just because groups cooperate. And in the case of Rome, the Patricians gained the larger spoils of power and wealth from their cooperation with the Plebs. According to Morey (1901) "As the Patricians were generally more wealthy than the Plebeians, the conflict became at first a struggle between the rich and the poor, a contest for a more equal distribution of …show more content…
I think the leaders in a society often seek to carve out exceptional privileges for themselves. And in short order, those who are cut out of the deal discover how disempowerment leads to depravation and servitude. And throughout history, as the disenfranchised are the majority, and the minority cannot operate the levers of government without them, poor people and middle class people always make their displeasure known to the rulers, and if the petitioners are well organized, the rulers must relent to demands. That appears to be the case with the Plebs in Ancient