Digital Scrapbook Entry# 8 Rome

Agnes Yu

 World History

May 1, 2015

        Social Class in Ancient Rome and Modern Times

Link 1)

http://www.cliffsnotes.com/sciences/sociology/social-and-global-stratification/types-of-social-classes-of-people

Link 2)

http://www.hierarchystructure.com/ancient-roman-hierarchy/

Social class refers to particular level in such a hierarchy. No matter in ancient times or nowadays, 

social class has always existed. In ancient Rome, the social class defined who you are; what you 

suppose to do, what you are not suppose do, whom you should work for, and it also relates to the 

freedom you had in ancient Rome. However, it is the same thing and has the same definition in 

modern times, such as, the United States. The social class plays an important role in the society of the 

world.

The society in Rome was hierarchical, everything had a level and it defined who you are and what 

role you are playing in the society. There were slaves, which were in the lower class, there was 

middle class and upper class. And of course, the higher position you have, the easier your life is. 

Also,  Plebeian and Patricians are the two terms that were using in ancient Rome to describe the 

lower class and the upper class.

Furthermore, let's talk about what each class could do in ancient Rome. In ancient Roman hierarchy, 

if you were born in Rome had the roman blood, and owned numerous property and wealth, you were 

definitely going under the category of Upper Class. Having slaves were like the symbol of the Upper 

Class, and the girls were married very young. For the Lower Class, there were the commons, the 

freed people and slaves, the commons were able to marry another Roman citizen and had kids. The 

freed people were once slaves to the Rome and got their freedom for some reasons. The slaves were 

the property of the owners, their freedom was controlled by their masters.

Social class also existing in the United States, the majority of population are in the Lower, middle and 

the working class, most of them need to work and gain money to support their families or themselves. 

The population of the Upper Class is off balance, the people who are defined as the Upper Class, 

most of them are celebrities, heirs and politicians. And of course, it is not easy to become a celebrity 

to live an easier life. The lower class is defined as the poor, they gained a certain amount of support in 

a lot of aspects from the government, some of them couldn't even find and jobs, and those who got 

jobs are the low-paid ones. People in the lower class, they are homeless, didn't finish high school and 

lack of medical care. They don't have enough food and clothing. Similar to ancient Rome, the lower 

class were majority slaves that could't find jobs and being as the property of the masters.

No matter how things have changed, time has changed, there is also a thing called the Social Class to 

help the society to define the roles of its people. The good examples for that are ancient Rome and the 

United States. And after all, I wish the government could care more about the 

lower class people, because most of them are working really hard everyday just to survive, they 

should provide more chances to them. For us, we should value everything that we have right now 

because a lot of people outside that we don't know are starving and having a lot of troubles.