Roman Society: Citizens, Senators, Slaves and Freedmen

The same structure, written in law

When you studied Roman housing you found that a building was a social structure made physical: the grand house had a room for receiving clients because its owner had clients to receive. This topic is that same structure written down as law. Roman society did not simply have rich and poor people, as every society does. It had categories with legal definitions, and which category you belonged to determined what you could own, what work you could do, whom you could marry, whether you could vote or hold office, and what you could pass to your children. That is a different thing from wealth, and the difference is the topic. There is also a good way into it. The easiest place to see a category clearly is at its edge, where it stops. A freedman is the sharpest edge in Roman society: somebody who had been enslaved and was no longer, who counted as a citizen and yet could not do everything a citizen born free could do. Look carefully at what he was barred from and the whole structure becomes visible at once.

Words for legal status

Six terms your specification names. Every one of them is a legal position rather than a description of wealth, which is the distinction to hold on to.

Match the group to what defined it

What citizenship actually gave

A person living in a Roman city is not a Roman citizen. What difference does that make?

• A substantial one: citizenship carried legal rights and protections, so where somebody lived and what status they held were separate questions
• None: living in a Roman city made a person Roman
• It depended entirely on how wealthy they were
• It depended on whether they spoke Latin

Two orders, one qualification each

The two highest orders both had property qualifications, so both were wealthy. What separated them was what they were expected and permitted to do.

Which two describe the equites

Select the TWO statements that describe the equestrian order rather than the senatorial one.

• Business, trade and finance were open to them
• They were defined by a property qualification below that of the higher order
• They were restricted from certain kinds of trade
• They held no property qualification at all

The position the law defined

You have been told twice already on this course that Roman households ran on enslaved labour, and this is where that is examined properly. Set out the position as your specification asks: in law. An enslaved person in Rome was the property of another person. They could be bought, sold, given away or left in a will, they held none of the rights a citizen held, and what they could do was decided by their owner. That is the legal fact, and it should be stated plainly rather than softened. The work varied enormously, and your specification asks you to know that: some enslaved people did heavy unskilled labour in fields, mines or building work, while others were skilled and did work that required training and trust, including managing accounts, running households, teaching children or practising medicine. Skill did not change the legal position, and that is worth saying: a person could be trusted with a household's finances and still be owned. Freedom was possible. An owner could free an enslaved person, sometimes in return for payment, sometimes as a reward, and often in a will after the owner's death. Notice what the specification is asking you to describe here. Not how terrible it was, which needs no proving, but how it was arranged: who counted as what, and what followed from it. That is the historian's question, and it is the one the exam asks.

Naming the groups

Roman society was graded by legally defined status. The highest order were the _____, who held the highest property qualification and were expected to hold public office. Below them were the _____, who were also defined by property but were free to engage in business. An enslaved person was legally the _____ of another and held none of a citizen’s rights. Being freed was called _____, and the person freed became a _____, who was a citizen but carried limits a freeborn citizen did not.

Order the ladder of status

Put these legal positions in order, from the least legal standing to the most. Notice where the freedman falls, because that is the interesting part.

• An enslaved person, who is legally the property of another
• A freedman, who is a citizen but carries limits a freeborn citizen does not
• A freeborn citizen, without those limits
• An eques, a citizen meeting the equestrian property qualification
• A senator, meeting the highest property qualification and expected to hold office

The sentence that makes it natural

Four sentences from an answer about Roman society. Select the ONE that treats a legal category as though it were natural or deserved rather than imposed.

• An enslaved person was legally the property of another and held none of a citizen’s rights.
• Some enslaved people did skilled work requiring training and trust, though this did not change their legal position.
• People ended up in the position they deserved, since the able ones could always earn their freedom.
• A freedman became a citizen, but carried limits that a freeborn citizen did not.

The edge that shows the category

A question asks what the position of freedmen tells us about Roman society. Here is an answer that would score well, and it shows why the edges are worth studying. A freedman was somebody who had been enslaved and had been freed, usually by his owner, sometimes in a will. On being freed he became a Roman citizen, which is a substantial change: he was no longer property, he could own things in his own right, and his position was protected by law. But he was not simply a citizen like any other. Limits remained. He carried obligations to his former owner, who became his patron, and certain offices and positions were closed to him in a way they were not closed to a man born free. His children, however, were freeborn, and those limits did not pass to them. That combination is what makes the category so revealing. It shows that Roman status was not a matter of wealth, because a wealthy freedman was still a freedman; it shows that the categories were legal and inherited rather than earned, because the limits ended with the generation that had been enslaved; and it shows that the boundary between free and unfree was a real legal line that a person could cross, rather than a description of how life happened to be. Notice the method. The answer describes the position rather than judging it, uses the specification's own terms, and reasons outward from one category to the structure as a whole.

Say what the limit reveals

Assemble a sentence that reasons from a restriction to the structure behind it.

Placing a person in the structure

A source describes several people in a Roman city. Work out what each one’s position tells you.

• A man is described as wealthy from trade and as holding no public office. What does that suggest?
• Another man manages a household’s accounts and is described as owned. What does that tell you?
• A third is a citizen with obligations to a former owner. What is he?
• You want to draw a conclusion about Roman society. What is the strongest kind?

Explain how Roman society was ordered

Explain how Roman society was divided, using the groups your specification names, and what the position of freedmen shows about the structure as a whole.

• Explain what Roman citizenship was, and why it was not the same as living in a Roman city
• Describe the senatorial order, including its property qualification and what senators were expected and not permitted to do
• Describe the equestrian order and how it differed
• State the legal position of an enslaved person plainly
• Explain that enslaved people did both unskilled and skilled work, and that skill did not change their legal position
• Explain what manumission was and name a route to freedom
• Explain what limits a freedman carried, and what happened to his children
• Finish by explaining what those limits reveal about how Roman status worked