40402910

Guilford Press
Origins of the Class Structure in Pre-Etruscan Rome, C. 750 B.C.c. 550 B.C.
Author(s): Lorne H. Ward
Source: Science & Society, Vol. 52, No. 4 (Winter, 1988/1989), pp. 413-440
Published by: Guilford Press
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Science sf Society, Vol. 52, No. 4, Winter 1988, 413-440
ORIGINS OF THE CLASS STRUCTURE

IN PRE-ETRUSCAN ROME,
c. 750 B.C.-c. 550 B.C.
LORNE H. WARD
It requires but a slight acquaintance with the history of

Roman republic ... to be aware that its secret history is
history of its landed property.
KARL MARX (1967:1, 82)
POSSIBLE ORIGINS OF SOCIAL CLASS in ancient

Rome, most particularly the origins of the patrici
their peasant-clients, have been a mystery to histor
a long time now. Speculation has ranged from theor
outside, racial or ethnic, conquering groups coming in a
ing their rule on the early Latins, reducing some of
peonage (Conway, 1939, 466; Piganiol, 1916; Bind
Ridge way, 1907), to ideas about how indigenous grou
Latin society itself arose and turned their fellow tribe
into dependent peasants.
The ancient Romans themselves said little about their own
class beginnings and what they did say was either lost in the
enigmatic legends and myths about the early kings, or in dubious,
simplistic, if not confusing and contradictory later interpretations
of those accounts. Yet some of these legends may reveal or, at the
least, suggest more about Rome's origins than might otherwise be
expected.
Most such legends serve the dual function of both explaining
as well as legitimizing and glorifying a society's beginnings, and
although the mythical Romulus was credited with founding the
City of Rome, the myth itself may have been based on an out-
standing later tribal chieftain or a composite of such chieftains.
Much of what was attributed to him, especially his political
reorganization of the tribes, likely had already incipiently evolved
and he built on, expanded and consolidated it to a more advanced
degree (Livy I, 7-16; Dionysius II, 6-16; Plutarch, Romulus I,
9-15; Cicero II, 7-18).
413
414 SCIENCE &f SOCIETY
As happens with such stories, the

this later important chieftain myt
ward into time to around the mid
first villages were settled on the se
have, then, as the primary source
already partially formed, possibly
composed mostly of small semi-com
vided into three tribes and 30 curia
evolving a fairly primitive class
landholding patres and their depen
Who composed these classes, wher
more exact relationship between th
legends themselves tend simply t
idealized way, more in political, soci
ic economic terms. In fact, they
beneficial and supportive, almost
uncertain as to whether this was
political relation in which the local
of all the farmers in their distri
economic relation between the bigg
the relatively small number of des
come dependent on them.
Certainly the legends don't desc
exploitative, near slave relation b
known as the nexum, which arose a
Finley, 1965, 159-184; Radin, 192
confused on this issue for good rea
likely just coming into existence an
fluid and far from being crystallize
ture they were later to become.
What appears to be the case and
confusion, both in the legends as w
of early Roman society, was that t
tinct, though overlapping, social
not just one; what caused the confu
was in transition from one to the
seem to be describing many of th
portive, political and legal gens t
subchiefs and their clan members a
peasantry.
CLASS STRUCTURE 4 1 5
However, as private property and

clan system began to break down, t
replaced by a much more specific,
personal economic relation between
ger land and cattle owners, and a p
impoverished members within th
tribes, as well as foreign immigrant
from outside the area (Plutarch, R
II, 16, 35).
In this transition, there was co
"carryover baggage" from the earlier
baggage that got increasingly heavie
number of victims. The gentler
thread" clan ties with the many, ov
harsher, unequal, tighter and thicke
tor for the indebted minority.
Modern Roman Historians
In modern times, the debate about these classes has gone

through its own evolution, alternating from lively and pro-
vocative, if tentative speculation, to simply ignoring and slighting
over the problem. Tenney Frank (1959; 1914), for instance, at
least initially, seemed to be headed in the right direction when he
searched for class origins in the property differences within early
Latin society itself:
It is now usual to assume that the distinction arose chiefly by the operation of
common economic and social laws (Frank, 1959: 1, 1 1.). ... it was inevitable that
some men became lords of extended fields and persons of influence in the state,
while others were reduced to economic and political dependence upon them.
(Frank, 1914, 5.)
In a similar vein, both H. H. Scullard (1980, 63-64) and

Frank Cowell (1963) come to conclusions like those of Frank. As
Cowell argues in The Revolutions of Ancient Rome, "a small elite of
more intelligent, enterprising and older families had, by in-
heritance, luck or greater skill, succeeded in acquiring much more
land and livestock than the average family could ever hope to
possess" (Cowell, 1963, 16).
416 SCIENCE of SOCIETY
Although these and similar theo

the origins of the patricians, oth
source from which their client-p
last three scholars as well as Marxist historian M. Rostovtzeff
(1960) allude to the less fortunate rustici among the Latins becom-
ing in one way or another subservient to the bigger landowners.
As Rostovtzeff (1960, 21) observed, a "part of the population
became economically dependent on the great families."
Probably one of the most suggestive ideas about the peasant-
ry's beginnings was Theodor Mommsen's double-source theory
(1908, 78-80) that it arose primarily from a combination of for-
eign refugees and manumitted slaves who became dependent on
the big landholders for food, livestock and farm acreage. This is
again another variation on the theme that Rome's class structure
arose from external sources. Though some of the peasantry may
have indeed come from refugees and freed people, a more likely
explanation is that most of the tenant-clients, like the patricians
themselves, were created principally by socioeconomic conditions
within proto-Roman society itself.
On the other hand, Marxist scholars have also said little about
these origins, an area that should be their specialty and forte.
Marx (1967:1, 334) himself simply noted that "peasant agricul-
ture on a small scale and the carrying on of independent hand-
icrafts . . . form the economic foundation of the classical com-
munities at their best . . . before slavery had seized on production
in earnest." Although Engels (1942, 109-118) described the Ro-
man gens, property rights and the state, he said little about the
underlying agricultural beginnings of the class structure itself.
More recently, Perry Anderson in Passages from Antiquity to
Feudalism (1974, 53-103) hardly mentions these origins, mostly
because his account deals with later developments, such as the rise
of slavery and the fall of Rome, while G. E. M. de Ste. Croix (1981,
175, 334-372) in his brilliant, monumental work, The Class Strug-
gle in the Ancient Greek World (which also analyzes the class struggle
at Rome in considerable detail) notes how the patricians exploited
their peasant-clients for their own personal material and political
gain without going into the possible beginnings of that relation-
ship.
What is so critical about this early period in Roman history is
that it not only covers the dawn of the agricultural revolution in
Italy, but midwifes a qualitative, stru

mode of production from an essen
primitive communism to a class stra
division of labor between city and co
In the sequence of successive mo
primitive communism through sla
modern capitalism (Laibman, 1984,
1983, 1 1 1-134), this stage is clearly
phase between communal-tribal agri
slavery, especially that associated wi
What soon became evident, however,
was a highly advanced type of agrar
the mass production of low-priced f
mass urban markets both in Italy and
coerced proletariat recruited by forc
example of capitalism pushed to its m
Not only did the capitalists own th
tion but the workers themselves
means (Rathbone, 1983, 160-168; G
250). l
Within the broader context of Marxist debate in historical
materialism, then, the traditional sequence of successive modes of
production mentioned above may more correctly be characte-
rized, at least in the West, as a "non-linear" transition from primi-
tive communism through agrarian capitalism followed by an eco-
nomic regression into feudalism and then out on the other side its
eventual development into modern industrial capitalism. The lat-
ter, though far more technically advanced, productive and all-
pervasive than its ancient agrarian predecessor, is nonetheless
in many of its basic essentials structurally and qualitatively the
same.
What I've discovered in this study is that wha

cies exist in traditional Marxist theory in describ
of European feudalism and its transition to cont
ism (Gottlieb, 1984, 1-37; Hilton, et al, 1979; Bois, 1976;
Anderson, 1979, 405-422; Dobb, 1947, 35; Wallerstein 1974:1,
1 As Carandini notes, the slave mode of production was "the most drastic separation of
producers from their means (of production) and products that history has known
before the modern expropriation of the yeomen" (Giardina and Schiavone, 1981, 250).
418 SCIENCE 6f SOCIETY
37-98), the difficulties are even gre

tive agricultural communism and it
urban, class-stratified societies, mos
lack of hard evidence. If it is a pro
nomic core from its cultural and p
feudal mode of production with i
sion of labor," it is even more d
capitalist, primitive communist mo
more minimal, microdivision of lab
This paper, then, may be one of s
theoretically comprehensive attemp
raveling this "other," first great
history which has for so long be
historians and social theorists.
Two basic propositions will be set forth: (1) In pre-Etruscan
Rome, the class structure gradually arose, not from without and
above whereby foreign conquerors became the patricians, but
indigenously from within, among a small group of founding
families who, mostly through political influence and power, ac-
quired more land and cattle than others. (2) The peasantry arose
primarily from a combination of impoverished, limited-acreage
farmers who went into debt to bigger landholders; and surplus
people with no land at all who became the big holders' totally
dependent peasant-clients.
To understand how this may have come about over some two
centuries between roughly 750 and 550 BC, I will describe the
even earlier background to these developments and briefly trace
Rome's communal Latin origins.
Transition from Communal Tribal to Private Family Property
The early inhabitants of Latium were a small, scattered tribal

society living in west-central Italy. Originally evolved from
wandering, nomadic herders and food gatherers, by degree they
settled and became permanent farmers or rustid raising crops and
livestock. By around 1000 BC, as farming techniques and im-
plements improved, especially with the introduction of iron tools,
agricultural production steadily increased, living standards grad-
ually rose and the population likewise expanded in such a way
that existing communal relationships began to break down and be
replaced by more individualized far

1977, 160; Alfldi, 1974, 27-41; M
Trump, 1966, 16, 127-183; Gierow
Increasingly, each clan familia wor
with a common field on which every
the tribe's numbers grew, periodicall
and livestock (pecus) were re-section
ceeding generations could have the
gels, 1942, 110; Dionysius II, 7-10)
This process of what the Latins th
however, could not go on indefini
mounted and excess children wanted
land could not be divided into smaller units and still feed and
clothe the residents. This limit to repeated division appears to
have had two significant consequences: (1) the ager tended to
become attached to the family which had it at the last division and
was inherited by the children, rather than reverting to general
clan or tribe possession (Engels, 1942, 109-110; Watson, 1975;
Heurgon, 1973, 108; Warmington, 1959:3, 424-515).
(2) The surplus children who couldn't get their own land
migrated outward to new uninhabited territory to found and
settle their own colonies, taking with them these new practices of
family ownership (Livy I, 2-7; Alfldi, 1963, 5-19). It was no
accident that both the first seeds of private property in land and
expansion of the populus on it were closely associated and in-
tertwined. They arose simultaneously and reproduced themselves
over and over again. In fact, this was the basic economic and
population dynamic underlying most of Roman history, one of
the primary engines of first its peninsular Italian and later its
transmarine Mediterranean imperialism.
What further reinforced this early trend toward private
ownership was also likely the increasing time, labor and modest
surplus a family invested into the improvement and maintenance
of its alloted acreage, often with the added reward and incentive
of rising productivity and living standards. Moreover, as the larg-
er social and economic "safety net" of the gens and tribe shrunk in
size for its poorest members, the latter's survival increasingly
depended on whatever property they had, so this also promoted
their holding onto it at all costs.
Although these consequences were not the original intent of
the tribe at the time and were some

was in this way that the land gradu
than by design, became property
family. Step by step this informal
definitely to families within the cla
finally a legal protection of private
known as res familiaris, but only a
established economic and social fa
noted, "the common ownership o
possession."
Certainly many of the tribal forms or lex tribus of early Latin
society continued, such as the political and especially the religious
forms, even into the stage of high empire, but right under the
gaze of tribal eyes the inner socioeconomic core had been quietly
transformed into something radically and irreversibly different
from what it was before. The transition from primitive commu-
nism to private and, later on, large-scale capitalist farming had
been made. And contrary to the belief of some scholars, the
changeover was direct and not by way of some other intermediate
stage such as feudalism. That came after the period of empire, not
before it.
Early Division of Labor and the Marketplace
Although the land was divided up and in time owned and

cultivated by individual familiae with the plots passed on to their
children, such a system was by no means commercial as we un-
derstand that word today. At this point, it was small-scale, pre-
capitalist farming, i.e., embryonic "petty bourgeois" agriculture.
Each rusticus privately grew several different crops while col-
lectively raising livestock, such as sheep, goats, pigs and cattle, on
common open fields. It was subsistence multi-crop-animal farm-
ing and was relatively self-sufficient (Frayn, 1979, 57-92; Gjer-
stad, 1962, 16-17; Randall-Maclver, 1928, 41-42).
Eventually, however, a larger-scale specialization or "macro-
division" of labor began to take hold. Certain families, often
later foreign immigrants with particular skills, tools and access
to raw materials, specialized in the production of various handi-
crafted goods, while the rest of the farm population increas-
ingly produced surpluses of particular crops and livestock,
CLASS STRUCTURE 421
such as wheat, beans and sheep for

1942, 145-149; Frank, 1959, 12-23
What began to emerge from seven
on the Tiber River, probably by abo
was a common local marketplace, l
which rural families farming in outl
pluses to barter and exchange for clo
and implements made first by farme
sans. Eventually enough of a farm s
support these craftworkers, traders
(Carney, 1973, 26-32; Gjerstad, 197
62).
In this way, an early division of labor mediated by a barter
system of exchange arose, and as a result, productivity and living
standards gradually improved, mortality rates declined and the
populus likewise expanded more rapidly than before (Kent, 1978,
9-20; Sutherland, 1974, 17-18; Crawford, 1974:1, 35-37,
1974:2, 591-593.2
Although the early Roman economy was slowly differentiat-
ing in this way, it was still essentially a small-scale, one-class farm
community. There was as yet no class stratification or general
exploitation by the propertied of other people's labor. As long as
the society remained "horizontal" and egalitarian, this new divi-
sion of labor did not in itself create a class structure; it only laid
the economic foundation for such a structure later. Something
else had to be present for the next stage to occur. As one writer
noted in reference to the rise of early civilization:
Such a society was still egalitarian in access to resources and subsistence needs;
skills and tool use were differentiated, however. Such a society might be said to
have specialization without classes. (Garner, 1977, 207.)
Rise of the Patricii
What cut the more finely woven class structure from the
rough, democratic whole cloth of the tribe were most likely two
2 By about 650 BC it appears the donkey or ass was being regularly used as a rough
measure of value in the barter system, and by 550 BC it had evolved into crude bronze
pieces or aes rude, as a proto-monetary medium of exchange (Kent, 1978, 9-20;
Crawford, 1974:1, 35-37; 1974:2, 591-593).
422 SCIENCE fcf SOCIETY
forces, one first preceding the other

neously interacting and mutually rein
was small and could expand outward
its surplus, overflow population, ins
built right into the society to keep it
On outlying territory, new genera
equal shares of land to farm. Yet in s
some families one way or another di
better land than their fellow kinspe
is: how?
Initially, the process by which some got more than others
probably occurred peacefully rather than violently, perhaps one
might even say, "benignly," and contrary to some opinion (Frank,
1914, 3-6), it apparently occurred when there was a surplus
rather than shortage of land. Those families and clans who first
settled on the original site of Rome - the founding patres and
matres of the seven hills - claimed the immediate territory for all
the colonists and though they did distribute equal shares of land
to their offspring and fellow kinspeople, they may have had prior
claim to any extra land left over, land which could otherwise be
considered in the public domain, called ager publicus.
But there was more than just the politics of prior claim in-
volved here. Out of these important families or gentes maiores
arose the clan heads, tribal chiefs, elders and priests of the com-
munity as a whole, and with this power, they were able by degree,
at first slowly and then later more rapidly, to extend their control
over more land and livestock than other, often newer families.
Their superior social and political position in the tribus gave them
superior access to the productive resources of the tribus. Although
it may not have been much property at first, it was a start and did
give them an edge over other families and clans with less (Cowell,
1963, 16; Lenski, 1966, 229).
This appears, however, not to have been a naked, private
"land grab" on the part of the original settlers but at best, a
voluntary public grant to them and at worst, a default concession
by the gens. At the time, it was possibly understood that this extra
land would be used for the benefit of the entire community in
times of stress rather than for just the first families themselves.
And in a sense it was, for when the first destitute rustid appeared,
CLASS STRUCTURE 423
they were given land by the bigg

turned into peasant-clients.
This process of the gentes maiore
land for themselves and their kin as
been later echoed in Roman history
the patricians claiming newly co
tenants, and after that by big land
ager publiais for commercial purpos
be settled by landless farmers (Liv
35-37; VII, 16; X, 13; Frank, 1920
It should be noted parenthetically
marketplace described above appar
role or mediate in the process of
redistribution of land and cattle.
Yet the first families' assuming control over surplus ager ironi-
cally did not in itself create a ruling class and therefore a class
structure. It created a tribal status hierarchy with a political gov-
erning elite at the top. It was a "false," potential or semi-ruling
class set in place and ready to evolve into a real one, but at this
time it was not a genuine socioeconomic upper class. There had to
be the other half of the social equation and that was people
directly below them who became economically dependent on this
elite and whose labor the latter could regularly rely on and ex-
ploit.3
As a precondition, not only must there be people with more
property than others to "share" but there must also be people with
less who, in order to survive, are compelled to turn to those with
more. And since in early Rome nearly everyone had more than
enough ager to survive and even prosper, the question arises: how
did some people end up with less or none at all?
3 There appear to be about three phases in the birth and evolution of an early agrarian
ruling class: (1) A pre-propertied political and social elite of chiefs, elders and priests
who lead the tribe but do not personally own any more of its productive resources than
anyone else. (2) A propertied "false" or proto-ruling class which does own extra land,
cattle and other goods but does not yet have an exploitable lower class of dependent
peasants. This is a transitional phase and is likely fairly short; there is little point in
having much extra land if there is no regular, dependable labor force to work it. (3) A
true socioeconomic upper class which not only owns and controls more property but
has a distinct peasantry personally subordinate to it. In this third stage, a real class
structure and state have usually come into existence.
424 SCIENCE sf SOCIETY
Origins of Debt and the Half -Peasantry
The lower class, what was later called t

appears to have emerged as the result of
were closely associated: debt and surp
agriculture developed and living standa
people lived longer and the populus
rapidly; it was the first in a series of "
Table 3, p. 435 below).
To handle these increased numbers
panded outward to new fertile land as i
But as other neighboring tribes were a
early, quiet agricultural revolution an
surge, sooner or later these tribes pres
and ran out of the best land, a result
warfare and the concentration of politi
hands of the tribal chieftain who soon evolved into a semi-
hereditary, elected king (Dionysius I, 16; Livy I, 2-8, 11, 25,
56-57; Frank, 1959, 2-6).
It was at this point that the internal "equality machine" of the
gens system appears to have broken down and the society started
to "detribalize," privatize its property and stratify along social
class lines.
Unable to expand further out, the tribe likely turned back in
on itself and tried to accomodate its new members on existing
territory. At first, familiae may have divided up their own ample,
fertile acreage among several offspring, but as before, that pro-
cess could only go so far. Eventually the plots became too small to
support everyone, even in good years. Moreover, constant over-
farming sooner or later exhausted the soil and not enough could
be raised to feed the people on it. The next step then, was to move
further out on the edge of less protected tribal territory and settle
on inferior ager where other, more recent landless immigrants,
war refugees and fugitives may have already settled. Even waste-
land where the soil was less productive, water wasn't as available -
or too available - or the climate poor, was often reclaimed (Frank,
1920, 38, 1914, 5-6; Scullard, 1980, 40-42; Livy I, 10-36; II, 16,
35).
There were, of course other reasons why people became
destitute and dependent. Plain bad luck overtook some agricolae:
CLASS STRUCTURE 425
there was a poor harvest, insects at

drought, or flooding from the T
disease or were killed by wild anim
family, a father or son was disabled
30-32). But although these misfor
the basic, underlying structural sou
class. The source was regular and sy
changing economy, consequent re
increasing shortage of arable land
Ultimately it was not because pe
other tragedies; it was because the
struggle for economic self-sufficien
in the first place. In fact, parado
successful farmers with slightly hig
fore more surviving children, who h
nally ample acreage and thus, con
poverty and debt.
Because some families, both withi
tribe, couldn't regularly produce en
they likely turned to nearby gente
they wanted food and clothing, b
plements and draft animals. Initiall
was a fairly equal arrangement of
tance, a kind of built-in welfare a
Latin the word for loan is mutuum
1980, 82-83).
However, as private property be
tant, the society larger and gens t
impersonal, these clan heads, curi
earlier given generously and free
pected a definite return for their
people.
In making such loans, however, a custom had arisen in which
the recipients not only paid back the original aid but to show their
gratitude and appreciation for it, paid back an additional amount
as a gift or donum. This turned out to be actually a primitive form
of interest, and in time it evolved into a specific ratio or percent-
age of the interest to loan principle, i.e.,faenus or usura to caput,
and was usually "entered in a separate agreement" (Bourne, 1966,
85).
426 SCIENCE 6? SOCIETY
The extent of one's gratia or "inter

started out at roughly a ratio of o
annum, and was one part gift or gra
ple. Later when crude bronze pieces
of exchange, the "gift rate" was one b
Reinhold, 1966, 103, 107; Westrup
29; Livy III, 34-57; VI, 11-20).4
The "gift rate," however, was only
very reason why borrowers sought
reason why they had difficulty payi
increasing credit risk, so in the futur
families were in trouble, the lend
guarantee of repayment than the b
eventually wanted the debtors to p
stock, perhaps a share of next year's
In essence, the collateral determined
of default while the interest or "gift ra
for how long it was to be taken (V
ton, 1959, 437-441; Livy II, 23; III,
trup, 1947).
By degree, then, neighboring gentes maiores extended their
control over the less well-off through debt obligations. As small
farmers became destitute and had to pay an ever increasing inter-
est rate, it took longer to pay off a loan so that their crops or labor
were mortgaged for longer and longer periods of time. They
became trapped in the quicksand of the debt paradox: the harder
they struggled to get out of debt, the deeper they sunk into it. The
result was that debt could evolve into either a kind of lifetime rent
or indentured servitude (Stinchcombe, 1966, 182-190).
At some point the small farmers were "foreclosed on" as
defaulters or addica, but under early Roman tribal law, the land
could not be taken from them outright. They were allowed to stay
and farm it, but they had to turn over a certain amount of the
crop or more often work for their creditor until the debt was
4 Although the farmers' livestock and crops may have been originally mortgaged, as
population increased and average farm size shrunk, the agricolae needed everything
they produced to survive; there were no extra cattle or crop shares to pay back, so
eventually they either sharecropped the bigger owners' land or increasingly mortgaged
their own and their families' labor, a near-slave status known as the nexum (Girard,
1929; Westrup, 1947; Varro VII, 104-105).
CLASS STRUCTURE 427
satisfied.5 Although the rusticus still

ship of the land, he was losing effe
and the bigger landholder eventuall
Nonetheless, because he had not r
property, the smallholder was a p
better off than the destitute, landless
the landlord (Varro VII, 105; Lew
Scullard, 1980, 82-83).
Yet this increasing economic contr
fortunate should not be seen throug
business practices of today. It was a
whereby the bigger property owner
care of poor familiae and in some ca
landlord's household, especially if th
died in war. Originally what happen
by some sinister conspiratorial desig
of unequal partnership, if not gua
themselves called a patronus-clientela
paternalistic, it was nonetheless a de
ship. And it was out of this kind of
large scale, commercial slavery arose
dian, 1958, 1-11; Bourne, 1966, 47
Full Clientela Rustica
Yet the type of debt that has been described so far was likely
only one source of the dependent peasantry. The second and
eventually even more important source appears to have been the
surplus, overflow population, both from within the seven hill
society itself as well as from outside the immediate area. Once the
better ager had been divided up and even the lower quality,
marginal land further out taken over by surplus children, there
was little arable acreage left. The next generation of offspring
had no choice but to turn back inward and go to those better-off
5 At first, debts may have been paid off through a form of crop-sharing, either from the
farmer's own ager, or from acreage assigned to him on the landlord's nearby estate,
based on the amount of usura charged on the loan. As land and capital became scarce,
however, the interest rate appears to have repeatedly doubled from 8% to 16% on up to
33%, and it was these percentage shares of the crop that were likely paid to the creditor
(Stinchcombe, 1966, 182-190; Scullard, 1980, 82-83).
428 SCIENCE & SOCIETY
gentes with more land for help. N

land, seed, livestock, implements a
farming, they had to get nearly
landowners (Cowell, 1964, 30-32
This they were able to do, but at
ly the big holder provided just e
three acre plot, and a few implem
However, in exchange they appare
er's modest estate for varying l
labor-servants. Rather than being
rustici with their own land had become, the landless became
"share-laborers" who performed a myriad of tasks around the
bigger farm (Dionysius II, 10; IV, 16; Livy I, 43; White, 1970,
345-346; Scullard, 1980, 73; Badin, 1958, 7-11; Mommsen,
1864:1, 319).6
In this respect at least, they were quasi-serfs and it was the
closest early Rome was to get to feudalism. Since the landless had
no other place to turn, they had to accept this arrangement or
starve. This too was a type of indebtedness but a much more total,
dependent variety and one that turned the debtors into full
tenant-clients. The real peasantry had finally been born, not a
half-peasant that partial debt produced, but a complete dientela
rustica that only total proper tylessness could create.
Thus, Rome's first and original lower class appears to have
grown out of a constant "surplus people pushing process." First,
extra children were pushed off onto overdivided small parcels of
land and then inferior, marginal ager further out. In both cases,
they were pushed into debt and economic dependence on the
better-off landholders. Then the landless children of other small
farmers, possibly combined with overflow immigrants from out-
side the area, were in turn pushed as full peasants onto the estates
and surplus land of the bigger owners. In this way, even at
this early stage, the peasantry had a two-tiered hierarchy of
6 According to the Servian classification of citizen wealth, the smallest parcels of land
were about 1.25 acres per family, and though the first peasant-clients may have been
given more, as good acreage became scarce and the nobles wanted to insure an
economic dependency on them by their clientela as a reliable source of cheap, resident
labor, the acreage eventually shrank to between one and two acres (Livy I, 43; Frank,
1959, 20).
CLASS STRUCTURE 429
middle, less poor and lower, dest

16, 35).
Curiously enough, this development foreshadows what would
happen to Rome over half a millenium later as another, sec-
ond peasantry arose and led to decline and fall into feudalism.
Even as Rome was being born, it was going through a dress re-
hearsal on a miniature scale and in embryo of its own future
demise.
Contrary to the belief of some scholars (Frank, 1920, 9-12;
1923, 25; 1959, 11; Weber, 1976, 279-281; Meyer, 1924, 351),
the most destitute of these small rustid were primarily reduced to
the status of peasant-clients rather than land-tied serfs. As the
early Frank (1914, 6) himself notes, "plebeians seem never to have
become serfs." Given the type of peasant and semi-commercial
farming system that was emerging, the economic conditions sim-
ply didn't exist for a feudal serfdom to develop. Some of the
elements were certainly there but they were neither the critical
ones nor did they endure long enough to coalesce and become
permanent. For one, though the client-tenants lived and worked
on the landowner's bigger farm, they were not legally bound to it.
Once out of debt, they were free to leave if they could make a
living elsewhere. Moreover, they didn't owe certain hereditary
services to their new landlord, nor did the latter owe services to
his tenants (Scullard, 1980, 63-64).
It was precisely from these dim flounderings in the realm of
give-and-take and mutual help that debt in early Rome slowly
developed and, given the precarious life of some of the farmers
there, eventually hardened into a rather cruel and inhuman in-
stitution, at least by modern standards. The irony was that what
started out as a very benevolent and humanitarian practice de-
signed to assist rather than to deprive people in time became its
terrible opposite. What began as a good means to a humane end
became an inhumane end in itself. The worst of evils seems to
originate in the best of intentions.
Thus, in pre-republican Rome indebtedness apparently be-
came the central mechanism by which wealth was reshuffled and
the class system erected. Although revolution may be the great
leveler and collapser of the social hierarchy, debt is one of its chief
architects. Or to put it more symmetrically, if debt distributes
430 SCIENCE fcf SOCIETY
property vertically upward, revolutio

ly back down into the hands of the l
Crystallization of Social Class
Once a neophyte landed nobility an

to come into existence, probably by 6
ture soon reached a "critical mass"
fairly rapidly after that. As soon a
certain threshold, class separation
much like living cells dividing (Gjer
The best-off farmers above, the fi
the founding, in a sense "split off the
out of them created the peasantry. T
"middle class" of independent far
coalesced into an upper stratum by
bottom of that same middle class d
class. In this way, these early proto
transformed themselves into a true p
with direct economic control over their tenants and considerable
political influence over the rest of the society.
When this initial process had finally spent itself, probably by
the middle of the sixth century BC, Rome had been hurtled into a
new, higher socioeconomic orbit, and at that point, the class
structure likely began to stabilize and solidify, with a definite
separation and socially recognizable cleavage between upper and
lower classes. Not only did the top stratum in time identify itself as
a distinct, exclusive ruling aristocracy calling itself the patricii,
whose members could not inter-marry with outsiders, but all
other lesser people below them were called the plebeii (Stavely,
1983, 24-48; Ogilvie, 1976, 56-57; Momigliano, 1966, 16-24).
The top stratum not only had "class consciousness" as a class
in and for itself but was slowly closing itself off and evolving into a
hereditary "caste." Though it may have appeared solid and strong
at the time, it was not, because its later penetration by the new rich
quits coming up from below turned out to be relatively easy or at
least non-violent (Momigliano, 1963, 117-121; Last, 1945, 30-48;
Livy I, 35, 43).
The impression, however, should not be fostered that Rome
rapidly divided and then stabilized into a rigid, two-class society
CLASS STRUCTURE 431
of wealthy landlords and small ten

are not dealing with medieval E
one-, "middle-," class society of
producers, not a polarized two
and serfs. Moreover, in spite of
ing vertically within the social s
and peasant-client classes, both o
one in wealth and the other in num
tween were the less well-off but
farmers.
The bigger landlords were not a tiny minority owning the vast
majority of land. It was a moderate-sized minority, as ruling
classes go, owning only a moderate minority of wealth. Certainly a
few top patres and matres owned large tracts of land, especially
grazing and grain acreage on the outskirts of the first towns, but
most wealth was not concentrated in their hands. That would be a
much later development. Although some independent plebs rustica
were slowly becoming impoverished, the majority of them were
not; most of the land was still in their hands, and it was enough to
support their families and consequently was for the most part
debt and mortgage free (see Table 2). At this point, Rome had an
economically weak aristocracy sitting astride a large, healthy,
though not entirely secure "middle class" below (Rostovtzeff,
1960, 25, 41; Frank, 1959, 22-23).
Size of the Roman Class Structure around 560 BC
Although the evidence is fragmentary, there is enough of it to

reconstruct a rough approximation of the basic dimensions of this
early, pre-republican class structure and give us a crude idea of
what it may have been, at least for comparison purposes with the
class system at later dates in Roman history.
It has been estimated that there were about 150 patrician
families around 560 BC and this number was then soon increased
by the Etruscans to 250; it further rose to 300 senators by the time
the republic was founded in 509 BC (Livy I, 30, 34; II, 2; Scullard,
1980, 63-68). Since the average family had about five members,
there were roughly 750 people in this pre-Etruscan upperclass, or
1.5% of the populace, a percentage that falls within the 1% to 2%
range for ruling classes historically (Lenski, 1966, 219-220;
Brunt, 1971a, 194; Momigliano, 196

178-179).
The typical patrician family, then,
for that time, possibly about 50 acres
families working the land or a total of
took about one acre of land to suppor
acres for the patricians is a likely figu
or had direct economic control over
12 square miles, which was nearly 1
area, as can be seen in Table 2 (Web
336-345; Tibiletti, 1950, 288).
Although this was a minority of w
for the patricii to exercise great infl
although not large enough to do
definitely. It was not a case of one pe
arable land, as occurred in decayed, p
France, Mexico, Russia or China on t
tion. This fact had significant conse
over the next three centuries and exp
tions" were relatively peaceful.
Below the patrician upper class was
Romans, the "middle class" or classis
sufficient subsistence farmers, along w
ers and other specialists in the tow
Frank, 1959, 2 1).8 Altogether they c
populace or almost 42,000 men, wo
8,350 families. Since each rusticus had
for each member of the family, which
commons for grazing livestock, cumu
7 Although most of Weber's (1976, 286) calculati

estimate there were about eight client families p
from my own estimate often. By this calculation, t
meet its bare subsistence needs or 30 acres for all
on which the peasants worked to support the p
standard.
8 It is not known what percent of the population was in the towns in non-agricultural
craft and trading occupations around mid-sixth century BC, but based on the study of
other early agrarian societies at a comparable stage of development, probably about
10% of the population or roughly 5,000 people were strictly urban, i.e., the ratio
between town and countryside was about ten familiae rustica to one familia urbana
(Lenski, 1966, 199-200, 246-266; Frank, 1959, 21).
CLASS STRUCTURE 433
Table 1. Roman Class Structure around 560 BC
number of population,
class composition families population percent
ruling class big landown- 150 750 1.5%

ers
middle class farmers, 8,350 41,750 83.5%

craftspeople,
traders
lower class half-tenants, 1,500 7,500 15%

full peasants
total 10,000 50,000 100%
Table 2. Distribution of Arable Land Within the Class

Structure around 560 BC
mean total total square class

acres per acres per miles per land,
family class class percent
ruling class 50 7,500 12 17%

middle class 5 36,750a 57 83%
total arable land 44,250 69 100%

Roman territory 66,560 acres (104 square miles)
a Since there were roughly 5000 town dwellers without land, 5000 had to be
subtracted from the total "middle-class" populace to get 36,750, the number
of farm people, which with one acre per person, approximately equaled their
total acreage. See footnote 8.
Sources: Brunt, 1971a, 13, 26-33, 190-195; Scullard, 1980, 63-68; Frank, 1959,
5-10, 20-25; Ogilvie, 1976, 58, 179; Beloch, 1926, 620.
37,000 acres (57 square miles) or some 83% of all arable land;
again see Tables 1 and 2 (White, 1970, 345-346; Brunt, 1971,
194; Frayn, 1979, 29, 57-92).
With the close, intense, small scale hoe-farming of the time,
most of these agricolae had enough land to support themselves
and their families on farms raising w

trees and livestock, but as the popu
fertile acreage became scarce, a grow
selves eking out a precarious, marg
ferior soil or small subsistence gard
three acres apiece (Frayn, 1979, 29
It was primarily from this dark, de
majority independent yeomanry th
peasantry, and later, farm workers or
through debt, and then the outright
some of these marginals eventually d
class below. It was also primarily from
litically radicalized farmers arose t
movements of Rome in the centur
the militant activists for debt relief,
democracy within the aristocratic rep
The cruel irony was that the very
living standards and made life a litt
majority of people, also increased t
others to debt and dispossession, if
rarely thinks of the "prosperity mach
also a misery machine for many othe
Finally, below the majority middl
peasantry. Including both the half as
as a conservative estimate, they com
population or about 7,500 men, wo
families of five members each. Since
effective control over their ager or h
had little or no property of their own
1960, 25, 42; Frank, 1959, 23-26).
It is difficult to determine exactly
posed of indebted half-tenants with
landless "peasants-at-will" who had
likely, the first type was much more
because at this point debt appears t
than outright landlessness. Rome was
and too close to the communal hearth
hungry. It was only later with the ri
slave agriculture that dispossession
which finally led to the destruction
CLASS STRUCTURE 435
Conclusion
The class structure that had developed by mid-sixth century

BC out of an earlier fairly egalitarian, communal- tribal society
was one in which a division of labor had arisen between small
plebeian farmers and bigger patrician landowners in the country-
side, and craftspeople, traders and some proletarii in the city itself.
The mode of production was essentially petty commodity produc-
tion at both rural and urban poles, and though there was the
extraction of farm surpluses and labor from a minority of tenant-
clients by the patricians, most surplus value was produced and
disposed of by the majority of small agricolae themselves for their
own consumption, exchange and investment.
Table 3. Approximate Roman Population, Territory and Population

Density from 750 B.C. to 500 B.C.
total territory population density

people
per acres
BC square square square per
date populationa miles kilometers mile person
750 l,000500 21 5.2 500 1.28

700 5,0001500 103 26 500 1.28
650 15,0003000 306 78 500 1.28
600 30,0006000 6012 155 500 1.28
575 40,000 82 212 488 1.31
560 50,000 104 270 480 1.33
550 60,000 12,000 12824 332 470 1.37
c.530s 80,000h 175 453 456 1.4
520 106,000 240 622 442 1.45
509 130,000 300 777 433 1.48
503 120,000 300 777 400 1.6
500 116,000 16,000 30012 777 387 1.66
a Most amounts are rough, rounded-off estimates, unless ot

b Italicized figures are censuses at traditional dates, also itali
Sources: Brunt, 1971a, 13-14; Alfldi, 1963, 129-130, 297-303
438; Beloch, 1926, 620.
A primitive class structure had de

cians had peasants subservient to t
land ownership and therefore econo
nobles possessed about 17% of th
Sabines
southern
Etruria
I
S Nomentum
Veii J
' Caere C. Fidenae/^ ^^V
I ^O^^^^^^Ficulea '
' f I ! JRome "' ^

' / I ' (0 BC i I Gaii
FregenaSf J ' %x Q -** /
y^jf ' > '? -** 650 BC / /
' S* I**- -^ Labici
' SS " ^^^ V Tusculum
Rustia Alba ''J

Tyrrhenian ' ^^ #
Sea V BCX y/^Aricia
>v 500 BCX #
>v y Lanuvium
1": h miles ', Laviniuny^
t ^' ^^^^^ Latium
0 t 1 2 3 'T
miles ' Ardea
Figure 1. Approximate Expansion o

to 500 b.c. Sources: Alfldi, 1963
CLASS STRUCTURE 437
83% - and though they had by this

cal clout in an embryonic monarchy
could put so much pressure on the
had to yield.
It was a case in which the means
were in the hands of the small farm
were gradually accumulating mor
during this early phase of Roman hi
important structural reasons, th p
to enable the nobles to take over
the contrary it was the plebeians
inant.
As the founding of the republic

man economy was a mixed combina
agriculture which was increasingly
commercial farming; in fact, the p
rectly related to the extent to
mercialized and trade regionalized. A
a fifth of the economy had been "p
cians, the dependent peasantry itsel
out and replaced by larger-scale cap
which the old, inefficient peasant
pete.
Under these conditions, then, there were essentially three
successive modes of production for the first half of Roman history
from C.750 BC to the birth of Christ. There was primitive com-
munal agriculture before the Etruscans, which evolved into a
mixed, semi-subsistence, petty capitalist farming under the
republic, and finally on into full maturity, latifundist agrarian
capitalism under the empire.
Garden Grove, California
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ORIGINS OF THE CLASS STRUCTURE

It requires but a slight acquaintance with the history of

POSSIBLE ORIGINS OF SOCIAL CLASS in ancient

As happens with such stories, the

However, as private property and

Modern Roman Historians

In modern times, the debate about these classes has gone

In a similar vein, both H. H. Scullard (1980, 63-64) and

Although these and similar theo

Italy, but midwifes a qualitative, stru

What I've discovered in this study is that wha

37-98), the difficulties are even gre

Transition from Communal Tribal to Private Family Property

The early inhabitants of Latium were a small, scattered tribal

replaced by more individualized far

the tribe at the time and were some

Early Division of Labor and the Marketplace

Although the land was divided up and in time owned and

such as wheat, beans and sheep for

Rise of the Patricii

forces, one first preceding the other

they were given land by the bigg

Origins of Debt and the Half -Peasantry

The lower class, what was later called t

there was a poor harvest, insects at

The extent of one's gratia or "inter

satisfied.5 Although the rusticus still

Full Clientela Rustica

gentes with more land for help. N

middle, less poor and lower, dest

property vertically upward, revolutio

Crystallization of Social Class

Once a neophyte landed nobility an

of wealthy landlords and small ten

Size of the Roman Class Structure around 560 BC

Although the evidence is fragmentary, there is enough of it to

Brunt, 1971a, 194; Momigliano, 196

7 Although most of Weber's (1976, 286) calculati

Table 1. Roman Class Structure around 560 BC

ruling class big landown- 150 750 1.5%

middle class farmers, 8,350 41,750 83.5%

lower class half-tenants, 1,500 7,500 15%

Table 2. Distribution of Arable Land Within the Class

mean total total square class

ruling class 50 7,500 12 17%

total arable land 44,250 69 100%

and their families on farms raising w

The class structure that had developed by mid-sixth century

Table 3. Approximate Roman Population, Territory and Population

total territory population density

750 l,000500 21 5.2 500 1.28

a Most amounts are rough, rounded-off estimates, unless ot

A primitive class structure had de

' f I ! JRome "' ^

Rustia Alba ''J

Figure 1. Approximate Expansion o

83% - and though they had by this

As the founding of the republic

Garden Grove, California

Anderson, Perry. 1974. Passages from Antiquity to Feudal

Badin, E. 1958. Foreign Clientelae, 267-70 B

Carney, T. F. 1973. The Economics of Antiquity: Controls,

Conway, R. S. 1939. Cambridge Ancient History IV. J. B. Bury, S. A. Cook, and