1.      Patricians and Plebeians.  Patricians were the aristocracy in the early republic.  By the late Republic they had lost most of their power, but still had some prestige.  Plebeians, or Plebs, were the ordinary people.  The early struggles between patricians and plebeians produced a complex political system where no group had total power.

2.      Nobles and “new men”.  The nobles, or nobiles, were descendants of a consul.  A “new man” or novus homo was the first man in his family to enter the senate.

3.      Optimates and Populares.  The optimati (or boni) were those who wanted the Senate to run Rome.  The populares wanted the ordinary people to have more power, working through the popular assemblies.

Tribunes

Their original role was to defend the plebs against the power of the patricians.  One of their rights was to veto acts of other magistrates.   In the late Republic the Gracchi brothers showed how much power they really had.

“Knights” (singular eques, plural equites)

Originally cavalrymen, who mostly paid for their own horses.  By the late Republic they were a kind of rich army officer.  You could only be an eques if you had enough money.  Until the Gracchi a senator could serve as an eques, but Gaius Gracchus excluded senators, and gave the equites a political function.  The result was that the equites became the enemy of the senate.

Senate

Originally an advisory body, made up of patricians.  During the hundreds of years of warfare from the early Republic onwards, it took more and more power.  Plebeians were eventually allowed to be senators.

Popular assemblies

The ordinary people were grouped in various ways, such as by centuries, or by tribes.  In different assemblies they voted according to different groupings.  Some assemblies included all citizens, some just the plebeians.  By the late republic the most important is the Comitia Popularis Tributa.  That means the assembly of plebs only, voting by tribes.

The political system

The Romans never abolished anything, mostly for religious reasons.  So their political system is littered with various institutions with little power.  It makes it look very complex.  In brief:

• The senate debates at length, and proposes laws.
• The assembly of the people can accept or reject these laws.  It cannot alter them.

By the late republic the tribunes are beginning to use the popular assemblies to make laws.  This challenges the supremacy of the senate.

Roman Social Groups

Social groups are based on

• legal status      e.g. citizen, slave, freedman, foreigner
• gender
• achievement    e.g. magistrate, senator, tribune
• family              e.g. patrician; noble (sons in male line of a consul)
• wealth             e.g. equites
• occupation       e.g. traders excluded from senate
• age                   bulla, toga virilis, military age, veteran age

Equites

• Originally cavalrymen.  Horse supplied by state, or privately.
• Later the eques became a kind of army officer.
• Till the Gracchi a senator could serve as an eques.

Gaius Gracchus’ changes:

·          He excluded senators.

·          He gave the equites a political function:

 >      seats on juries (previously held by senators)

 >      the public contract to collect taxes in Asia.

The result was that the equites became the enemy of the senate.

Under the empire, the equites included the sons of senators before they assumed senatorial rank.  They were army officers, jurymen, and civil servants.

Senate

• At first 300; Sulla raises it to 600;  Caesar to 900;  Augustus returns it to 600.
• Patrician senators were “patres”;  plebian senators were “conscripti”.
• In the Republic, senators were chosen by the censors.
• Since in practice through the Republic it was based on wealth and birth, it became increasingly hereditary.
• Sulla made it depend upon the quaestorship;  hence senators were in some sense popularly elected.
• Freedmen, and sons of freedmen, could not be senators.
• A property qualification was first imposed by Augustus (but most senators already had eques status).
• Senators could not hold state contracts (hence no tax-farmers); nor could they own a large ship (hence no merchants).  Most became landlords.

Cursus honorum

The required age changed from period to period.

quaestor           age 30 (from Sulla’s time on)

aedile               age 36

praetor             age 39

consul              age 42