How did the plebians eventually gain a larger role in the romain republic?

Answer 1

In the early Republic the patrician aristocracy monopolised political power. All the senators and consuls (the two annually elected heads of the city and the army) were patricians. They excluded other elites from power. The plebeians were all the non-patricians, the commoners, both rich and poor.

The poor plebeians rebelled several times and formed a plebeian movement to fight for the economic grievances of the poor. Rich plebeians became leaders of the movement and used it to press for access to the senate and the consulship (the consuls were the two annually elected officers of state who were the heads of the Republic) and for power-sharing with the patricians. They obtained this as well as access the other offices of state which were created as the Republic developed during the 200-year long Conflict of the Orders between patricians and plebeians. They used the agitations of the plebeian movement to obtain this.

They were incorporated into a patrician-plebeian oligarchy and were given equite (cavalry) status. This was the lower tier of the aristocracy. At this point the rich plebeians turned their backs on the poor and their economic grievances were not addressed properly.