One of the things that has surprised me while I’ve been doing this research on Rome prior 323 is that I’ve become completely entranced by early Rome. Prior to this research, I was not interested in 5th or 4th century Rome at all for some good reasons: the only text that comes out of that era is the Twelve Tables and the two best sources on that period, Livy and Dionysius of Halicarnassus are well-known in part for how they don’t distinguish between history and legend for this period.
The change for me came when I read Raaflaub’s essay “Conflict of the Orders”. Raaflaub is a famous Greek historian in this essay he does a fantastic job not only of pointing out how hard it is to study this particularly Roman time period, but also of comparing Rome during this time to Archaic Greece in order to highlight the similar kinds of social struggles that occurred in both places.
Archaic Greece refers to the time period of c. 750, when Homer wrote the Odyssey and Iliad to the end of the 6th century. Sometimes historians will use the date 490, specifically when the Greeks beat back the Persian invasion. During this time period, for the most part the Greek system of monarchy collapsed (the major exception being Sparta, but even there the monarchy had to change dramatically). In place of monarchy, the Greeks began to experiment with various forms of aristocracy, many of which collapsed into tyrannies and some of which gave way to democracies. Greek commoners challenged the right of governmental positions to be reserved for aristocrats on the basis of lineage. The Greeks codified their laws and wrote them down. All of these processes helped defined what it meant for the Greeks to consider a particular man or woman a citizen.
Similar struggles happened at Rome, but unfortunately their traces are must more indistinct than in the case of Greece. Indeed, some scholars challenge the idea that the Romans ever had a monarchy. In my opinion such a position takes a skeptical stance towards the Roman evidence too far and also begs the question of why we should dismiss evidence that asserts that Romans were similar to the Greeks. So the Romans overthrew their kings, set up a Republic, codified and wrote down their laws and had protracted fights about what it meant to be a citizen. During these fights the Roman plebeians ultimately broke down all the barriers that restricted political and religious offices to the patricians.
So it is against this backdrop that the Romans decided to allow former slaves to become citizens, albeit with some restrictions. We know that the Romans did not allow freedmen to take political office because it was only until the 4th century that the Romans guaranteed the right of the sons of freedmen to take political office. Some of these barriers remained for a very long time, such as the family requirements for a woman to be able to join the Vestal Virgins.
The change for me came when I read Raaflaub’s essay “Conflict of the Orders”. Raaflaub is a famous Greek historian in this essay he does a fantastic job not only of pointing out how hard it is to study this particularly Roman time period, but also of comparing Rome during this time to Archaic Greece in order to highlight the similar kinds of social struggles that occurred in both places.
Archaic Greece refers to the time period of c. 750, when Homer wrote the Odyssey and Iliad to the end of the 6th century. Sometimes historians will use the date 490, specifically when the Greeks beat back the Persian invasion. During this time period, for the most part the Greek system of monarchy collapsed (the major exception being Sparta, but even there the monarchy had to change dramatically). In place of monarchy, the Greeks began to experiment with various forms of aristocracy, many of which collapsed into tyrannies and some of which gave way to democracies. Greek commoners challenged the right of governmental positions to be reserved for aristocrats on the basis of lineage. The Greeks codified their laws and wrote them down. All of these processes helped defined what it meant for the Greeks to consider a particular man or woman a citizen.
Similar struggles happened at Rome, but unfortunately their traces are must more indistinct than in the case of Greece. Indeed, some scholars challenge the idea that the Romans ever had a monarchy. In my opinion such a position takes a skeptical stance towards the Roman evidence too far and also begs the question of why we should dismiss evidence that asserts that Romans were similar to the Greeks. So the Romans overthrew their kings, set up a Republic, codified and wrote down their laws and had protracted fights about what it meant to be a citizen. During these fights the Roman plebeians ultimately broke down all the barriers that restricted political and religious offices to the patricians.
So it is against this backdrop that the Romans decided to allow former slaves to become citizens, albeit with some restrictions. We know that the Romans did not allow freedmen to take political office because it was only until the 4th century that the Romans guaranteed the right of the sons of freedmen to take political office. Some of these barriers remained for a very long time, such as the family requirements for a woman to be able to join the Vestal Virgins.