Roman citizens were divided up into two distinct classes: the plebeians and the patricians. The patricians were the wealthy upper-class people. They, in other words, were the ruling class of the Early Roman Empire. Everyone else was considered a plebeian: farmers, craftsmen, laborers and soldiers of Rome. In the early stages of Rome, Patricians controlled all of the government and religious positions and made the laws, owned the lands, and were the generals over the army. However, around 494 BC, plebeians began to fight against the rule of the patricians. They began to stand up for their rights. This struggle is known as the "Conflict of the Orders." Over the course of around 200 years, the plebeians gained more rights. They protested by going on strike. They would leave the city for a while, refuse to work, or even refuse to fight in the army. Eventually, the plebeians gained a number of rights including the right to run for office and marry patricians. Plebeians also received the Law of the Twelve Tables which were laws that were posted in the public for all to see and protected some basic rights of all Roman citizens regardless of their social class. Although this is a revolution that happened centuries ago in the Roman Empire, we observe that the plebeian’s fight to defend their rights is an event that has, somewhat, influenced the way we live in our society nowadays.
The establishment of the Republic in Rome, in the year 509 BC, made political power remain in the hands of the patricians. The strengthening of theSenate and the exercise of executive power by the magistrates reproduced the exclusion of the plebeians of Roman political life. This political exclusion and economic exploitation have resulted in numerous sociopolitical conflicts in Rome, opposing patricians and plebeians. The clear inequality between patricians and plebeians was the engine for important political changes, such as the emergence of the Tribunes of the Plebe and the creation of the Law of the Twelve Tables.
