The Patricians: The Upper Classes

  • Senatorial class (senatores): The basis for this class was political. It included all men who served in the Senate, and by extension their families. This class was dominated by the nobles (nobiles), families whose ancestors included at least one consul (earlier the qualification had been a curule magistracy, i.e. curule aedile and up). The first man in his family to be elected consul, thus qualifying his family for noble status, was called a “new man” (novus homo). Senators had to prove that they had property worth at least 1,000,000 sesterces; there was no salary attached to service in the Senate, and senators were prohibited from engaging personally in nonagricultural business, trade or public contracts. Men of the senatorial class wore the tunic with broad stripes (laticlavi).
  • Equestrian class (equites): The basis for this class was economic. A man could be formally enrolled in the equestrian order if he could prove that he possessed a stable minimum amount of wealth (property worth at least 400,000 sesterces); by extension his family members were also considered equestrians. However, if an equestrian was elected to a magistracy and entered the Senate, he moved up to the senatorial class; this was not particularly easy or frequent. Equestrians were primarily involved in the types of business prohibited to senators. Equestrians wore the tunic with narrow stripes (angusti clavi).
  • Women: Although membership in these classes was dominated by the same families over many generations, the classes themselves were defined according to male activities rather than birth. Women's place in these classes was therefore somewhat problematic. However, there came to be a customary acceptance that women belonged to the social class of their fathers and then of their husbands, although the women had no special dress that distinguished their status.

Belonging to one of these upper classes had many significant consequences for Romans besides prestige, for social class determined one's economic and political opportunities, as well as legal rights, benefits and penalties. Rome had nothing comparable to our middle class; the gulf between these two upper classes and the much larger lower classes was immense. However, as long as one was a freeborn Roman citizen there was at least a slight possibility of moving into the equestrian class through the acquisition of wealth. Entry into the senatorial class, even for wealthy equestrians, was extremely difficult, since for centuries a small number of elite families had monopolized this class.

Lower Classes

  • Commons (Plebeians): all other freeborn Roman citizens. The special mark of dress for citizen males was the toga. All Roman citizens had conubium, the right to contract a legal marriage with another Roman citizen and beget legitimate children who were themselves Roman citizens.
  • Foreigners (peregrini): all other freeborn men and women who lived in Roman territories. In 212 CE most freeborn people living within the Roman empire were granted Roman citizenship.
  • Freed people (liberti or libertini): men and women who had been slaves but had bought their freedom or been freed. They were not fully free because they had various restrictions on their rights and owed certain duties to their former masters, but they could become citizens if their former masters were citizens and they had been formally freed; they were not, however, eligible for public office. This was the one class it was not possible to leave, though the class encompassed only one generation. The next generation, their freeborn children, became full citizens (Plebeians) and could even become equestrians if rich enough. Freed people had low social status, and most were probably fairly poor, but it was possible for them to achieve some success in a trade, and a few might even become wealthy. They had no special distinction of dress.
  • Slaves (servi): system of owned slavery where human beings were born into slavery or sold into slavery through war or piracy. Slaves were the property of their owners by law, but by custom some slaves (especially urban, domestic slaves) might be allowed their own savings (peculium) with which they might later buy their freedom, or their masters could free them, so some mobility into the previous class was possible. Roman slavery was not racially based, and slaves had no special distinction of dress, though slaves who had run away were sometimes made to wear metal collars with inscriptions such as the following: “I have run away. Capture me. When you have returned me to my master, Zoninus, you will receive a reward.”
  • Women: Since the lower classes were not defined by male activities, there was no problem with including women; female and male children were automatically members of the social class of their parents (except for freed people, since only one generation could be “freed”). If the parents were Roman citizens and had contracted a legal Roman marriage, the children followed the social status of their father (i.e., they were Roman citizens). However, in the case of foreigners and slaves, children took the social status of their mother, even if their father was a freeborn Roman citizen.