Roman Army before and after the Marius' Reforms

[Bryan]

Gaius Gracchus wasn't a military tribune when he passed the Lex Graccha laws, he was a Tribune of Plebeians.

Also, you are using Patrician incorrectly. It was not an economic class, like Class I or the Equestrian Order. During the Republic period (it changed later during the Principate and Empire), Patricians were citizens who could trace their direct male ancestry back to the Senate during the Kings, when the Senate were still advisers. By the time of the Late Republic and this discussion, a Patrician could be poor, as were both Sulla and Caesar supposedly growing up. A Patrician could be dirt poor. Or they could be from a consular family and be filthy rich. But their monetary worth was not tied in at all with being Patrician, it was a hereditary title that simply gave the title holder a higher public standing because of his family's contributions to Rome, the families were institutions. Likewise, Plebeian doesn't mean poor. Crassus and Pompeius and most of the great plutocratic businessmen that were Equestrians, they were all Plebeians.

Lastly, you're still using Middle Class incorrectly. Rome didn't have a Middle Class, not the way you're trying to use it.

Senators
Equestrians
Class I
Class II
Class III
Class IIII
Class V
Proletariat (which included freemen without property and any other poor who had the citizenship)

Now compare that to the time period when the term Middle Class was termed in 1745:

Nobility/Clergy
Merchants
Peasants

See?

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Steven James

Your unrelenting eagerness to show me the continuous errors of my ways is highly praiseworthy.

It seems as if I don't need to. You are doing a good job of that by yourself.