Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
The distinction between patricians and plebeians in ancient Rome was based purely on birth. Although modern writers often portray patricians as rich and powerful families who managed to secure power over the less-fortunate plebeian families, plebeians and patricians among the senatorial class were equally wealthy.
However, an agreement was ultimately secured between the plebeians and the patricians. One year, the curule aedileship was to be open to plebeians, and the next year, it was only to be open to patricians. [12] Eventually, however, this agreement was abandoned and the plebeians won full admission to the curule aedileship.
The plebeians constituted the majority of Roman citizens after a series of political conflicts and equalization. Although patricians are often represented as rich and powerful families who managed to secure power over the less-fortunate plebeian families, plebeians and patricians among the senatorial class were often equally wealthy. [2]
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. [13] In 445 BC, the lex Canuleia permitted intermarriage among plebeians and patricians. [14]
Initially, only patricians were eligible to become magistrates and this, among other plebeian complaints, was a source of discontent for plebeians. In the context of this unequal status, plebeians would take action to secure concessions for themselves using the threat of secession. They would threaten to leave the city with the consequence that ...
Why was a law banning marriage between patricians and plebeians drawn up by a body composed by both patricians and plebeians (the majority of the members of the second decemvirate being plebeians)? [30] In 2005, historian Gary Forsythe dismissed the second decemvirate as unhistorical. He presents a number of arguments for his view.
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.
A series of clashes between the people and the ruling patricians in 495 and 494 BC brought the plebeians to the brink of revolt, and there was talk of assassinating the consuls. Instead, on the advice of Lucius Sicinius Vellutus, the plebeians seceded en masse to the Mons Sacer (the Sacred Mount), a hill outside of Rome. [2]