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The Conflict of the Orders or the Struggle of the Orders was a political struggle between the plebeians (commoners) and patricians (aristocrats) of the ancient Roman Republic lasting from 500 BC to 287 BC in which the plebeians sought political equality with the patricians.
The social structure of ancient Rome revolved around the distinction between the patricians and the plebeians. The status of patricians gave them more political power than the plebeians, but the relationship between the groups eventually caused the Conflict of the Orders. This time period resulted in changing of the social structure of ancient ...
Plebeians were tied to patricians through the clientela system of patronage that saw plebeians assisting their patrician patrons in war, augmenting their social status, and raising dowries or ransoms. [2] Plebeians were barred from marrying patricians in 450 BC but this law was annulled five years later in 445 BC by a tribune of the plebs.
There was a radical reform in 367–6 BC, which abolished consular tribunes and "laid the foundation for a system of government led by two consuls, shared between patricians and plebeians" [15] over the religious objections of patricians, requiring at least one of the consuls to be a plebeian. [16]
Although legal reform occurred soon after the implementation of the Twelve Tables, these ancient laws provided social protection and civil rights for both the patricians and plebeians. At this time, there was extreme tension between the privileged class and the common people resulting in the need for some form of social order.
The law is named after Quintus Hortensius, a plebeian, who is made dictator to settle the controversy. With the Lex Hortensia in place, in theory the political distinctions in Rome between the patricians and the plebeians disappear. However, in practice, the coalition of leading plebeian families keep control which means that the patricians are ...
However, the patrician class, made up of elite families, quickly began to dominate the political scene at the expense of the majority, the plebeians. The conflicts between the patricians and plebeians came to be known as the Conflict of the Orders. By 290 BC these conflicts largely came to an end when plebeian consuls were introduced.
This event, although far from resolving all the economic and social inequalities between patricians and plebeians, nevertheless marked an important turning point in Roman history as it gave rise to the formation of a new type of patrician-plebeian nobility which, allowing continuity in the government of the republic, constituted one of the main ...