Conflict of the Orders

Ordines

• Patricians
  • Highly privileged aristocratic class of Roman citizens
  • Control all the religious and political offices
  • Membership achieved only by birth
• Plebeians
  • All the Roman citizens who are not patricians
  • Forbidden to marry patricians so no possibility of becoming patrician
  • No right of appeal against decisions of the patrician government (and no laws are codified or published)
  • Advantage in size of order ("power in numbers")
  • Use collective bargaining and resistance: strategy of secessio¹

Timeline

• 509. Brutus and Collatinus are first 2 consuls (read Livy)
• 508. First of many grain shortages: 496, 492, 486, 477, 476, 456, 453, 440, 433, 411
• 504. Migration of Sabine clan of Attius Clausus (App. Claudius) to Rome
• 501. First dictator appointed
• 494. First Secession, Concilium Plebis established, first tribunes and plebeian aediles
• 486. Sp. Cassius consul for third-time, proposes land distribution to needy peasants
• 485. Sp. Cassius killed on charges of treason (perduellio)²
• 471. Lex Publilia
• 462. Demand for codification of laws first voiced by tribune Terentilius Harsa
• 451. First Decemvirate³
• 450. Second Decemvirate⁴, Second Secession, Code of Twelve Tables completed
• 449. Third Secession, L. Valerius Potitus and M. Horatius Barbatus pass Valerio-Horatian Laws
• 445. Tribune C. Canuleius sponsors Lex Canuleia
• 444. Institution of military tribunes with consular power (tribuni militum consulari potestate)
• 440. Sp. Maelius attempts to relieve grain shortage, L. Minucius Augurinus exposes this as tyrranical plot, C. Servilius Ahala kills Maelius
• 376. Tribunes C. Licinius Stolo and L. Sextius propose legislation, and almost 10 years later...
• 367. Licinio-Sextian Laws passed
• 366. Curule aedileship to alternate between patricians and plebeians
• 357. Tribunes fix maximum rate of interest at unciarium foenus (8 1/3rd percent?), government tax of 5 percent on manumission
• 352. Quinqueviri mensarii appointed (5 men to help debtors in trouble)
• 347. Maximum rate of interest reduced by half
• 342. Fourth Secession, Leges Genuciae
• 339. Leges Publiliae
• 326 or 313. Lex Poetilia provides debtor relief
• 304. Ius civile Flavianum of aedile Cn. Flavius⁵
• 300. M. Valerius Maximus passes Lex Valeria de provocatione, Q. and Cn. Ogulnius pass Lex Ogulnia
• 287. Last Secession, Lex Hortensia

To quote Professor Barbara F. McManus from The College of New Rochelle:

What was essentially won during the conflict of orders was the breakdown of an aristocracy of birth and its replacement with an aristocracy that was based on the holding of political offices and on wealth, particularly land-based wealth. The conflict did not destroy the hierarchical, class-based nature of Roman society, nor did it greatly improve the lives or the prospects of the poorer segments of society.

Extras

• List of plebeian secessions (per Cary & Scullard)
• List of plebeian firsts
• List of temples constructed during this time period

Okay, let's go over the wars of early Republic and the Roman Conquest of Italy.

1.  Secessio was withdrawal or the threat of withdrawal from the Roman state during times of crisis.

2.  He was either executed by his father by right of patria potestas or was condemned to death by the consul Q. Fabius Vibulanus for treason (accused of winning popular favor in order to become king).  Sp. Maelius and M. Manlius were put to death on similar charges; Maelius in 439 and Manlius in 384.

3.  A group of ten patricians appointed to codify existing Roman law, both public and private.  In one year they compiled 10 tables of law.

4.  Second group of ten commissioners, 5 patricians and 5 plebeians, charged with task of completing the codification of Roman law.  The only man to serve on both commissions was Appius Claudius, an oppressive tyrant who encouraged his colleagues to add 2 more tables of what Cicero calls "unjust laws."  A famous episode was the killing of Verginia by her father Lucius Verginius to save her from Appius' lust.  Verginia had been betrothed to L. Icilius, who then led the Second Secessio.  As a result, Claudius was banished and the other decemviri either adbdicated or committed suicide.

5.  Cn. Flavius was a scriba and libertinus who published a manual of legal phrases and procedures (legis actiones) and posted a list of dies fasti and dies nefasti in the Forum.  This information enabled plebeians to protect their rights in legal matters.