be appropriate for definition of this social system.”55 Treggiari says that “being Roman was not a matter of ethnicity but of legal definition.”56 Roman law proves foundational to both the strata and the conduct. Strata defined hierarchy which determined obligations correlative to legal rights and duties in the social scale.
Rome as an obligation society organized itself on the basis of a hierarchical strata of “strong” and “weak” demarcations, or, on the social scale, where the weaker possessed duties of obligation and response to the stronger contingent upon the circumstances. The strong possessed duties of obligation to the weak, too, but the strong maintained the greater prestige and privilege. This might be called an organized inequality, a society, according to Cicero, “that puts forth very effort to oblige all sorts of conditions of men.”57
Gamsey and Sailer say, “The system of acquisition and transmission of property was the basis of the Roman framework of social and economic inequality.”58 Sailer allows that the power of property, its privilege related to status, and the possibility property ownership increasing the chance of social mobility upward on the social scale was so dominant in the Roman psyche that strategies for property succession resulted.59 Entry into the propertied strata became difficult to monitor so the emperors instituted laws concerning properties.60 These laws determined duties and obligations.61 Gamsey and Sailer comment, “Inequalities, deriving from uneven property distribution that was confirmed or even accentuated by imperial policies, were underpinned by Roman law.”62
55 Alfoldy, Social History, 149.
56 Susan Treggiari, Roman Social History (London: Routledge, 2002), 7. 57 Cicero, On Duties 2.71.
58 Gamsey and Sailer, The Roman Empire, 110. 59 Sailer, Partiarchy, Property and Death, 161-80. 60 Gamsey and Sailer, The Roman Empire, 110. 61 Gamsey and Sailer, The Roman Empire, 110. 62 Gamsey and Sailer, The Roman Empire, 110.
Property rights and their ensuing obligations validated the understood social strata, thus “like other aspects of Romanization, worked in favour of the Roman-backed elite.’63
Alfoldy discusses the “Orders-Strata Structure and Its Effects” and divides the hierarchical pattern of Roman society into “two unmistakable groups: the upper strata and the lower strata.”64 In the upper strata, in descending order, comes the emperor
(imperator), then the ordinary senators (ordo senatorius) then the equestrians (ordo equester) then the decurions (ordines decurionum).65 Typically, these members of the
upper strata served as the “strong” of society. The lower strata consisted of plebs, primarily the struggling, the poor, and the “weak” members of society, many of whom were indebted and obligated to the “strong.” The strong and the weak as social
distinctions on a hierarchical scale advanced in ascending and descending modes of honour, praise, dignity, and other indigenous Roman mores, each playing a role in social practice and conflict resolution.
Borkowski mentions “the struggle of the orders,” a clash between the upper
(patricians) and lower (plebeians) strata which created friction as the constitution and the
policies developed in the early history of the Republic.66 This struggle helped formulate the Twelve Tables, making both a “clear statement of law” and correcting the notion that earlier plebeian resolutions (plebiscite), which proved non-binding to all Roman citizens
fn
in the past, especially with reference to debts, would be binding in the future. Consequently, and instrumental to the thought of obligation binding all strata, “the
plebeians obtained the important concession that plebiscita should bind all Roman
63 Gamsey and Sailer, The Roman Empire, 110-11. 64 Alfoldy, Social History, 146.
65 Alfoldy, Social History, 146.
66 Borkowski, Textbook on Roman Law, 4. 67 Borkowski, Textbook on Roman Law, 4-5.
citizens, and not just plebeians although patrician ratification was necessary.”68 Two principles emerge from Borkowski’s discussion: a bond united the Romans and “the strong” patricians maintained the upper hand in societal structure using it like a noose around the neck to coerce submission in obligations.69
Aligning the strata structures and ranking hierarchical patterns does not solve the complexity of relationships bound to such positions. It is important to ascertain that what appears very complex to the reader about Roman society was clear to the persons living in that society: obligations ensued because of the strata. Relationships required both vertical and horizontal legal obligations and cultural mores between the upper and lower strata. Imagine a spider web with Rome at the centre and an unending, expanding, complex network of silk strands connecting both horizontally and vertically, including a hierarchy within a hierarchy, for example, in a Roman household where there was a “sharp hierarchy.”70 Romans comprehended this web because of legal definitions with its status and privileges. Gamsey says, “The point to stress here is that they [privileged groups] were publicly recognized or recognizable criteria on the basis of which those privileges could be identified.”71
The privilege distinctions among groups were viewed by Romans as orders
{ordines), “divided,”72 and beneath the princeps stood the superior senators, equestrians,
and decurions “with a large and amorphous mass of plebs at the bottom of the
hierarchy.”73 “Amorphous” serves as an important word because, while in the words of Cicero, a “descending” social scale was distinct, the conduct of those living in Roman
68 Borkowski, Textbook on Roman Law, 4-5. 69 Borkowski, Textbook on Roman Law, 4-5.
70 Peter Oakes, Reading Romans in Pompeii: Paul’s Letter at Ground Level (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2009), 42.