plebeians's Usage Examples:

The Catuli and Metelli, among the proudest nobles of Rome, were plebeians, and as such could not have been chosen to the purely patrician office of interrex, or of Jupiter.

Though patrician in sympathy, he saw the necessity of making concessions to the plebeians and was instrumental in passing the Licinian laws.

In the first place the plebeians gained full rights of ownership and transfer, and could thus become freeholders of the land which they occupied and of the appurtenances of this land (res mancipi) .

In a certain sense he knew better; at any rate, he often repeats the words of those who knew better; but the general impression given by his story is that the plebeians were a low mob and their leaders factious and interested ringleaders of a mob.

She was worshipped almost exclusively by plebeians, and her temple near the Circus Maximus was under the care of the plebeian aediles, one of whose duties was the superintendence of the corn-market.

But not only can it be shown that patricians and plebeians coexisted as distinct orders in the Roman state at an earlier date than the evolution of citizenship by the clients.

A third statute disqualified plebeians from being elected to canonries or bishoprics.

"The aristocratic origin of Rome, the struggle between the patricians and the plebeians, the laws of the XII.

They separated themselves from the mass of the plebeians to form a single body with the surviving patricians.

At the time of the Servian reforms both branches of the plebs had a plausible claim to recognition as members of the state, the clients as already partial members of the curia and the gees, the unattached plebeians as equally free with the patricians and possessing clans of their own as solid and united as the recognized gentes.

And it is instructive to observe that when the plebeians extorted their full share of political power they also demanded and obtained admission to every priestly college of political importance, to those, namely, of the pontiffs, the augurs, and the XV viri sacrorum.

When this relief has been gained by a series of enactments, a second struggle follows, in which the plebeians win political equality with the patricians.

Synonyms:

lowborn, common, vulgar, unwashed,

Antonyms:

noble, intellectual, clergyman, upper-class, middle-class,