Republican Elites

Abstract

The very notion of Rome's ruling elite, the nature of its composition, its identity as a sociopolitical order and the power it wielded over the people, are at the core of Roman Republican scholarship. According to the old orthodoxy, the senatorial elite exercised full control over the conduct of politics, including the legislative and juristic spheres and the election of magistracies through a complex, hierarchically arranged system of mutual patron–client obligations. The populus Romanus comprised two groups: a relatively small number of patricians and a vast majority of non-patricians, the plebeians. Livy's narrative bears witness to the rising prominence of a new status group in the economic arena, the knights or equestrians. The single most important moment of aristocratic status affirmation was when candidates sought electoral approval by the Roman people. In the aftermath of the Hannibalic War, the changing economic realities at Rome created new lines of separation in the Senate.

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