Ancient Rome is often cited as a republic/democracy, and one of the earliest examples of a civilisation enforcing some degree of human rights. However, it's no secret that slavery was present in Rome. So, I want to know the rights that various classes of people held during the Republican era (c. 500 - 27 B.C.), e.g. slaves, women, artisans, etc.
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8Which period of time do you want to know about? Depending on how you define Roman you could include Byzantium and the Holy Roman Empire as well as The Roman Empire and Republic.– Sardathrion - against SE abuseCommented Oct 19, 2011 at 8:27
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1@Sardathrion is right. Okay, so you pretty obviously don't mean the Holy Roman Empire (which isn't Roman in any sense really), but even the classical Roman Empire spanned a period of about half a millennium!– NoldorinCommented Nov 6, 2011 at 20:42
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@Sardathrion,@Noldorin: I meant the Roman republic roughly from 500 BC to 27 BC.– apoorv020Commented Nov 7, 2011 at 11:43
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Could you edit your question to make this clear?– Sardathrion - against SE abuseCommented Nov 7, 2011 at 20:42
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Edited for him. :-)– NoldorinCommented Nov 7, 2011 at 21:53
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1 Answer
There's a pretty good discussion of this here: http://www.vroma.org/~bmcmanus/socialclass.html
Briefly, in the early republic, the populace was divided into the plebs (common people) and patricians (aristocracy) with most public offices reserved for the patricians. Over time, this evolved into more layers, with the senatorial class (highest) followed by the equestrians, commons, freedpeople, and slaves. By the time of the late republic, some of the most powerful offices (eg., tribunes of the plebs) were open to commoners (although they were often occupied by members of the equestrian class, who had the resources to campaign for election).
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1It's also probably worth mentioning that the late republic had a somewhat murkier division between classes. By that point, there were a lot of rich plebeian families, and it wasn't all that uncommon to see them in high offices. While some positions still depended on pleb/patrician status, it wasn't really a clear cut common vs aristocracy issue in the late republic.– ricreeCommented May 24, 2012 at 0:18
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Just an observation, I know the distinction between pleb and patrician became blurred during the Republic, but recently read a reference to a noble plebeian family, which sounds like a contradiction in terms - like noble bourgeoisie! Commented Nov 5, 2015 at 15:00
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@TheHonRose: Interesting. Do you remember the source where you read that? Commented Nov 5, 2015 at 15:42
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@TomBarron Not at the moment, sorry, possibly not a very reliable one, but I'll try to recall it. Struck me as strange at the time. Commented Nov 5, 2015 at 21:02