Does anyone know anything about a Caste System during the Roman times?

Question

Any accurate info would help. thanks!

Answer 1

Social Class in Rome
This introduction to Social Class and Structure in Rome, it is by no means exhaustive but it does give a flavour of what the class structure was like in ancient Rome. There were four main classes of person in Rome: the Aristocracy known as "Patricians", the common folk known as "Plebeians", the slaves and finally the free men who came into Rome to conduct business known as "Clients".

The Aristocracy (Patricians)
From the earliest beginnings of Rome the basic unit of Roman society was the family. Within the family units, the father was to all intents and purposes "owner" of his wife, children and slaves to the same extent that he owned his sword and other material possessions. The head of the family could do whatever he wished with the other members of his direct family, including selling them off as slaves or putting them to death. In the very beginning there were no laws to govern the rights of individuals within the family.

The families were grouped up into clans or "gens". Each gens claimed a common ancestor and they came to make up the aristocracy of Rome. The head of each gens/clan was called "pater" (father) and all the members of these aristocratic families became known as "Patricians".

Read more about the Patricians

Plebeians
The "plebs" were the vast majority of society and they constituted a social class made of the common folk. Generally speaking they were the descendants of people who had come to Rome after the Patrician families had founded it. Possibly they were descended from freed men or simple immigrants.

Read more about the Plebeians of Rome

Slaves
Everyone knows what a slave is, and in the early days of Rome these persons were largely confined to working in the house. The lord of the house had the same rights over his slaves as he did over his wife and children. He could make a slave into a free man or sell one of his own family members into slavery.

It is generally a mistake to ignore the role of the slaves even if they had no free will or voting rights. Like any other "commodity good", the price of slaves was related to their abundance. Times of conquest brought access to cheap slaves which in turn meant free, extremely cheap labour. This in turn had huge and direct effects on productivity, on the Roman economy and the welfare of the people, whatever their social class.

Slaves could perform all sorts of jobs and in many cases could be extremely well educated people. One could therefore find slaves working in the shops, banks and teaching in schools just as easily as they might be found tilling the land of some rich Patrician.

Read a lot more about slavery in ancient rome and how the slaves found their freedom

Clients
Persons who had come to Rome such as travelers, merchants and other foreigners, including freed slaves, were generaly known as Clients and effectively formed part of a separate social class.

In the early days only the Patricians had Roman citizenship. Clients wishing to do business in Rome required the support of a Patrician as personal patron. A solid Patrician-Client tie was thus formed. A patrician waking up in the morning would often start off his daily duties by meeting up with a group of his Clients who would have come to visit him at his home in order to ask for his favours and support in some matter. The Clients would return these favours according to their means, whether by working the Patrician's land if they were poor, or by making generous gifts.

Answer 2

One historian says " Caste is a phenomenon which we do not encounter at all in the Greco-roman world" (de Ste Croix 1981, pg 42)

There were of course classes and orders in the Roman world. The plebeian / patrician distinction above (and links below) - although it's important to remember you could be a plebeian and still a member of the elite.

In the later empire from the late second century onwards there was a new order which developed between the honestores and humiliores. Honestores were those of the elite, the senators and equites and high ups in local administration and in the army who enjoyed legal and status privileges - for example they could not be flogged. There were further divisions within this grouping depending on how close you were to centres of power. The humiliores were the rest. (ibid 456-62)

Obviously at the bottom of society there were slaves and even here there were gradations :an urban slave on the whole had a higher rank and better life chances than a rural one.

Further links below:

Answer 3

Roman Class System

Answer 4

Citizens:
Patricians
Equites (middle class)
Plebs (most Romans)
-----
Foreigners
Slaves

It wasn't a caste system however, because your class was based on land. Equites were supposed to have enough land to support a horse (they were supposed to be the cavalry); Patricians, supposed to have even more land. Your class/rank could be increased or decreased if your land amount changed, or (later) if the Emperor raised your rank.

You could marry someone of a different rank, but it didn't happen frequently.

Answer 5

This Site Might Help You.

RE:
Does anyone know anything about a Caste System during the Roman times?
Any accurate info would help. thanks!

Answer 6

This is a real no-brainer. There was an upper class - the ruling class - who lived in comparative luxury.
There was a middle class - the shopkeepers and merchants, who supplied the goods needed by the ruling class.
There were the slaves, who looked after the homes, did the work, were personal servants to the ruling class.
Any time you have an upper class, a middle class, and slaves, you have a caste system.
Within the caste system there were further subdivisions - the progeny of traditional families - in other words, the elite- were regarded as upper class and more influential that the newly rich, or the newly created upper class persons who were often generals who had made a name for themselves in battle. The members of the traditional famlies, even if they were dirt poor, were still regarded as superior to the nouveau riche, even if they were rolling in gold.