Roman citizens outside the patrician order, ranging from impoverished labourers to wealthy political families.
Overview
The plebs was not a uniform lower class. It included citizens of very different wealth, occupation, and influence.
Why It Matters
The long Conflict of the Orders produced tribunes, the plebeian council, access to magistracies, and legal protections. By the late Republic, elite plebeian families were fully integrated into the governing nobility.
In Roman Practice
Political language often invoked the plebs as a collective body, but urban crowds, rural citizens, soldiers, and wealthy plebeians could have different interests.