plebs

plebs or plebeians [Lat. plebs =people], general body of Roman citizens, as distinct from the patrician class. They lacked, at first, most of the patrician rights, but with the establishment of the tribune of the people in the 5th cent. BC, they gradually achieved political equality with the patricians. First marriage of plebeians with patricians was validated, then plebeians were admitted successively over several decades to the quaestorship, the consulate, the dictatorship, the censorship, and the praetorship; they finally obtained the important priestly offices of the pontificate and augurship in 300 BC With the blurring of the distinction between the two classes, from this time the name plebs passed to the lowest ranks of the people.

Bibliography: See K. Raaflaub, ed., Social Struggles in Archaic Rome (1986).

plebs The common people of ancient Rome, including the poor and landless. In the early republic they were excluded from office and from intermarriage with PATRICIANS. The political history of the early republic reflects largely their increasingly organized claim for greater political participation, which was rewarded by the concession of eligibility for the consulship in 367 BC. During the ‘Struggle of the Orders’ in the 5th and 4th centuries BC the office of TRIBUNE became a watchdog over the activities of the traditional ROMAN SENATE.

pleb / pleb/ • n. (usu. plebs) derog. an ordinary person, esp. one from the lower social classes. DERIVATIVES: pleb·by / ˈplebē/ adj.