08-09-2016, 03:30 PM
(08-09-2016, 02:38 PM)JaM Wrote: Brian, it doesnt matter how you call it.. there is no mention of let say Class I only forming Triarii, or Class V only forming Hastati... Hastati, Principes and Triarii were composed of all eligible citizens. Thats what im trying to say from the beginning.. if i used middle class term, it was just to point out these were not proletearii or patricians/equestrians. they were in the middle of these two groups, which btw neither were actually serving as infantry anyway.
You're still using Patrician wrong. Once again Patrician does not mean rich, it does not mean powerful, it does not mean Senator or Equestrian. If a citizen could trace their direct male line ancestry to the Fathers of the Republic, the original Senate, then they were Patrician. If they couldn't, they were Plebeian. Please read this.
Hastati, Principes, and Triari/Pilani were not composed of all eligible citizens. Because you're not including the other military roles that citizens played in the Roman army, namely cavalry and skirmishers, which according to both Polybius and Livy were manned by specific social economic classes.
The Lex Claudia of 218 BC prevented Senators from conducting commerce, making the Equestrian Order richer, but the Senators' sons were still Equestrians until Augustus separated the two orders. Equestrians were still members of Class I, they were the top 18 centuries of it.
Senators didn't serve in the Hastati, Principes, or Triari/Pilani, they served as Consuls, Praetors, Quaestors, and Legates. Equestrians did not serve in the Hastati, Principes, or Triari (other than to be centurions), they served as cavalrymen, cavalry officers, centurions, tribunes, and prefects.
So Senators ruled, Class I included the richest men in Rome, and the Capite Censi didn't even have their property counted since it wasn't worth it, which of Class I-Proletariat were the Middle Class? Class III? They're in the middle but they hardly have any social distinction separating them from Class II or Class IIII besides a slight difference in net worth.
