THE SOCIAL HIERARCHY 147Addendum
Status and class
Whether Roman society is more profi tably analysed in terms of status or class, that
is, from a Weberian or from a Marxist perspective, was a hot issue in the 1970s and
1980s (de Ste Croix 1981, with review by Shaw 1984c; Finley 1985a), but the debate
subsided thereafter, coinciding, more or less, with the decline of Marxist historiography
in general, not only in ancient history. Giardina (2007) is an illuminating introduction
to the subject. Other recent discussions of Marx on antiquity, and class analysis,
include Harris (1988), Wickham (1988, 2007), Lekas (1988), Shaw (1998), Morley
(1999, 2004), Nippel (2005, 2010), McKeown (2007, 2010), Capogrossi Colognesi
(2009, in Italian), Rose (2012, on archaic Greece), Marcone (2012, 2013, in Italian).
While the study of the Roman economy has expanded in recent years, much of the
debate has centred on macroeconomic issues, notably the scale, development and
institutions of the economy, rather than the agenda of Marx, namely, the main forces
of production (land, labour power – especially slavery) and their effective control,
and the processes that create and maintain inequalities.
There now seems to be a consensus that status and class can be employed in
parallel to highlight different aspects of Roman society. However, most research into
Roman society has focussed (as ever) on the higher status groups (see under ordo ,
below), if we except slavery, and implicitly accepts the primacy of status and rank.
There has been some reaction against analyses that apply formal defi nitions imposed
by the elite, such as the honestiores/humiliores dichotomy (treated most recently in
Rilinger 1988, in German; critique in Scheidel 2006). This distinction was enshrined
in the law and refl ects the reality of differential treatment in the law courts of the
empire, but was never intended as social history, and should not be treated as such.
Upper- class Romans were not of course ignorant of the fact that those below them
in status and power were not a homogeneous mass, but they had little interest in
mapping the pattern of economic and social inequality that existed amongst them,
nor is this refl ected in the terminology that they use ( ordo plebeius, humiliores ).
More generally, vertical models of Roman society, in particular that of Alföldy
(1985, 2011 rev. ed., in German), but also those of Jacques and Scheid (1990) and
Winterling (2009), have begun to be questioned because of their supposed failure to
refl ect social reality, in particular the existence of ‘middling’ groups between rich and
poor, elite and masses. According to Scheidel and Friesen (2009), ‘economically
middling non- elite groups’ made up around ten per cent of the population and
accounted for around twenty per cent of total income. The ‘middling class’ of
Mouritsen (forthcoming), with slaves and freedmen to the fore, was closely linked
with the elite, and thus possessed the potential for advancement. This account has
the advantage of underlining the permeability of the upper orders and the relatively
high degree of social mobility that characterized Roman society in certain areas and
social contexts. Further on social mobility: Andreau (1992), Mouritsen (2005),
Patterson (2006), ch.3. The ‘middling classes’ of these discussions is not to be
confused with the ‘middle classes’ with a distinctive identity, culture and economic
base envisaged by Mayer (2012); cf. the ‘plebs media’ of Veyne (2000). On the
Augustales of municipalities in the West, who have also been described as a ‘middle
class’, see Mouritsen (2011a), 249–60, with bibliography.