Rich Men In Ancient Rome

The Ancient Romans of the later empire claimed to be a Republic, this means that they were said to be a state in which supreme power is held by the people and their elected representatives, and which has an elected or nominated president rather than a monarch. In reality, this is only somewhat true in ancient Rome. The truth is that if a person was a citizen they did technically have a say in the way that the government, but the problem is only the rich men had a true say in the way that all of these things were accomplished. This brings up the question, who are considered rich men? The people who fit this category were mostly made up of the generals and high-ranking soldiers of the army. This is why the Roman military played a major role in …show more content…
The entirety of Rome has a lot of variations of people. For example, there are the plebeians, patricians, and slaves. The patricians were the richest and most famous romans, and the plebeians were the poorer or less educated class of people. In the later empire the senate is the group of people who were the representatives of the people who had no voice in the government. The senate was made up of the most educated and wealthy patricians. In Paul Erdkamp’s book, A Companion to the Roman Army he notes, “In Rome, control within the state was and remained in the hands of an urban-based elite of landowners.” (97) This shows that in reality almost all politicians in ancient Rome were also just wealthy patricians who were given the opportunity to lead. Even if the person in Rome with the best political viewpoint and understanding of what a smart and well-organized empire is were a plebian he wouldn’t even be given a chance. This is what the extreme hierarchy of Roman classes looks like. If someone wanted to be a politician and they were a plebian or a slave, they might as well forget about it because the only place where that could happen in ancient Rome is their dreams. That means that the plebeians had practically no say. In the book, Roman Politics by Frank Frost Abbott he writes, “The choice of senators in Rome was not made directly by the people.” (30). This indicates that the people who were not senators had even less of a say. But also these senators were the best and the brightest of Rome, so therefore most of them were worthy of having that power in their possession. This means that it is a strong system, however it is not fair to everyone in the empire under it and this could lead to greater problems with rebellions of the lower class citizens against the people who claim to be their