Social Class In Ancient Rome

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All societies have social classes; Ancient Rome is no exception. In Ancient Rome, the citizens can be spilt up most simply into these two categories: plebeians and partitions. Slaves were also a big category of people, but they weren't citizens of Ancient Rome. The partitions were the upper class and consisted of a small percentage of Ancient Romans. The larger percentage of Ancient Romans were the plebeians. Whether someone was a plebeian or partition was mainly based on the person's ancestry. Those who's ancestors were politically involved in Rome were the partitions and those who's ancestors were the typical working man became plebeians. This reenforced social inequalities and kept the same families doing the same jobs for generations. Although …show more content…

These roles changed over time as the Roman government became more welcoming to non-patricians. To start, no woman, regardless of wealth or class, was allowed to vote or to run for an office ("Social Class in Ancient Rome"). Slaves were not citizens and therefore couldn't vote. After they were freed, they could become plebeians. Plebeians didn't originally have the right to vote, but through various projects they were eventually allowed to vote ("Ancient Rome: Social Classes"). Therefore, freed slaves could vote if they were in a certain time period. Plebeians weren't originally allowed to run for an office either. This created conflict between the patricians and plebeians. Eventually plebeians were allowed to run for most offices. Even though by law plebeians were technically allowed to run for a office, it was very difficult ("Ancient Rome: Social Classes"). Emperor Augustus made it a requirement that to run for an office the person running must own an estate worth at least HS1,000,000 ("Ancient Rome: Social Classes"). Many plebeians were barely making ends meat and were no where close to being able to afford such an expensive estate. Although as quoted earlier, "some plebeian families rose in status" ("Social Class in Ancient Rome"). Some of these families made enough money to run for office, did, and run. This eventually led to the classes distinction becoming less distinct. Patricians could vote, run for office (as long as they had an estate worth at least HS1,000,000), and payed taxes ("Ancient Rome: Social

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