How was ancient Rome social organization?

Answer 1

The Roman social order was hierarchical and had different classes. The different classes included patrician, plebeian, and slaves. People were either Roman citizens or non-citizens. Similarly, there was a census rank which included people with wealth and political privileges.

Answer 2

At first, there were two broad categories of Roman citizens; the patricians and the plebians. The patricians could trace their ancestry back to the first senators, and the plebians could not. There was also eventually the property-based classes. The senatorial class had the most amount of money and influence. Below them on the totem pole were the equites or "knights". The equites were comparable to the medieval nobility. There were three more classes of Romans, ending with the proletarii, who had no property whatsoever.

Answer 3

Slaves at the bottom, then freedmen, and free-born citizens at the top. Then the free-born citizens were divided up into the Patricians and the Plebeians. The Patricians could trace their ancestry to one of the 100 Patriarchs at the founding of the city and the Plebeians, or Plebs, could not. Mostly, the Plebs were the common-folk, but that does not mean they could not be rich.

Answer 4

During the republic there were the patricians and the plebeians. The former were the aristocracy and the latter were the commoners; than is, all non-patricians. There were rich and poor plebeians. The rich plebeians were eventually co-opted into a patrician-plebeian oligarchy and were given equite (cavalryman) status, which was the lower tier of the aristocracy. The patricians remained the upper tier of the aristocracy. From then on the rich and powerful were either patricians or equites (historians also use the term equestrians). The urban poor was just the poor and constituted the masses of low status people. They were not classified under any categories.

Other categories were the decurions, who were well-to-do propertied middling and small farmers who owned their farms, and the coloni, tenant peasants.

Answer 5

The Romans had three social groups, which they called orders. The patricians were the aristocracy and were owners of large landed estates. Originally the plebeians were the commoners, that is, anyone who was not a patrician. In the early Republic another group developed, which became the second order: the equites (equestrians). They were entrepreneurial group: bankers, money lenders, merchants and investors in shipping and mining. They were given the status of equite, which was a sort of lower tier of the aristocracy. They plebeians became the third order and comprised middling people, such as well-to-do entrepreneurs and bureaucrats, and the masses of the poor. Some Roman clans had patrician and plebeian families. Often the members of these plebeian beaches were equites, rather than ordinary plebeians.

Answer 6

republic