The plebeians had the rights of a Roman citizen. The law gave all Roman citizens the same rights. Social inequality was not based on the law. It was determined by differences in wealth and status.
In the early days of the Roman Republic the patricians (the aristocracy) monopolised political power by monopolising the seats of the senate, the consulship (the office of the two annually elected heads of the Republic) and the priesthoods. As a result of the 200-year conflict of the Orders between patricians and plebeians (the commoners), the rich plebeians obtained power-sharing and gained access to the consulship and the senate. They also gained access to the offices of state which were created as the Republic developed (the censorship and the praetorship) and to some of the priesthoods. The grievances of the poor plebeians were different from those of the rich ones. They were economic. They were (originally) the abuse of defaulting debtors by (rich) creditors, indebtedness and the interest rates of loans; and the shortage of land for peasant farmers. Traditionally, farmers were given plots of land which were just about enough for feeding their families. The rest of the land was public land which could be utilised for common use. However, the rich landlords expanded their estates at the expense of the public land. Therefore, the amount of land available to poor farmers became insufficient and there were demands for redistributing land to the poor.
Explain the compromises reached by the particians and plebians?
The particians.
Plebians were common people Particians were nobles
The Particians were not a tribe but the upper class. They were preceded by kings.
Julius Caesar was born into a patrician family which had fallen on hard times The particians were the aristocracy.
Caligula treated the senate and the two highest social ranks, the particians and the equestrians, harshly. These were conspiracies agianst him. He was murdered by the Preatorian (imperial) Guard led by one of its officers, Cassius Chaerea.
The powerful citizens of Rome were the patricians and the equestrians. The patricians were the upper tier of the aristocracy and were large landowners and high priests. The equestrians were the lower tier of the aristocracy and were merchants, bankers and eterpreneurs.
The law of the twelve tables was compiled by a special ten-man committee called the decemviri. The decision to have a set of published laws was taken though an agreement between the patrician senators and the leaders of the plebeian movement.
The Plebs were all Romans who were not in the few hundred Particians - including some very rich and powerful elements. So the effect varied - some got richer and some poorer. The major effect was that some rich Plebs and Patricians took advantage of the absence of the small landholding citizens (who formed the army) on military duty to takeover (steal in effect) the common land when they were away for extended periods. This left their farms unviable as the common land provided forage for their plough oxen and other supplementary food products. In addition the slaves generated from Carthage's defeats meant that they displaced free labourers, leaving the poorer Plebs even more superseded - big land holdings worked by slaves left little scope for small farmers. This situation brought the counter-moves by the Gracchi brothers - Tiberius and Gaius, both murdered - to restore their position as the backbone of the state and the army. This laid the foundations of the civil wars which followed over the next century.
The word Republic comes from the Latin words res=things and public=in common. It pictured a society where all the citizens shared in the benefits of the city-state. When the Patricians - the upper class - ousted the kings, they naturally took control, leaving the mostly small farmer Plebeians as their subjects ruled by a patrician Senate. The Plebs refused to accept this and walked out of Rome, leaving the particians to fend for themselves. As the plebs manned the army, the city was defenceless, and as they also produced most of the foodstuffs, this was yet another insurmountable problem for the Patricians. The Patricians negotiated a settlement, which allotted one of the two annual consulships to the Plebs. As retiring consuls became senators, this gave the Plebs a growing share in the Senate. There were also established three Assemblies - the Centuriate (members of the army), the Tribal (landholders big and small) and the Plebeian (Plebs only, no Patricians), each with different matters which they voted on. And to sew it up, the there were the ten Tribunes of the Plebs who could introduce laws into the Senate, and had veto power in the Senate, and these also became senators after their year of office. The power of the Plebs grew, and the Republic became a democracy.
The plebeians had the rights of a Roman citizen. The law gave all Roman citizens the same rights. Social inequality was not based on the law. It was determined by differences in wealth and status.
Patricians= Powerful land owners who controlled Roman government and society. Plebians= Farmers and workers who made up most of the Roman population. These were the differences between the two groups at the beginning of the city. Over the years the Plebs gained status and voting rights and wealth. When Rome began to expand many people drifted into the city to live and work and they were neither patricians nor plebians. They were the proletariat, who made up the majority of the city of Rome's population. So by the mid-to late republic, the patricians and the plebians were the "status" citizens because they could trace their ancestry back to the founding of the city and society-wise there was very little difference between them.