 as the basis for descriptions of “Roman society.” We can safely assume that it reflects the way that Cicero and his fellow senators viewed the world - though in other writings Cicero offered slightly different versions, for example emphasizing distinctions between richer and poorer citizens, assidui and proletarii - and this “actors’ perspective” is an important part of understanding Roman social history. The question is whether it is sufficient. Cicero’s list comprises different kinds of groups, some defined by wealth, some by legal status, some by political rights, some by birth; elsewhere he includes occupation, place of origin and moral virtue as further means of dividing Romans into groups. There is, on the other hand, no mention of gender or race as principles of social organization, although modern scholars would emphasize at least the first of these. Cicero does not indicate which of these distinctions is most significant in ordering society, or, given that many individuals would have fallen into several categories, which ones were most important for a Roman’s sense of his own social identity. Finally, the account is self-serving, intended to rally the support of “all Romans” for Cicero’s policy and to present Catiline’s followers as outcasts from society. The “actors’ perspective,” subjective, partial and sometimes contradictory, tells us what society looks like from the vantage point of those at its pinnacle, seen through the lens of their prejudices and assumptions; it does not offer an objective picture of social structure.
For that, historians have often turned to modern sociological concepts. One important issue here is that there is no universal system for interpreting social structure, but a number of competing theories, each of which represents society differently and raises different questions. One approach is that of the “status group,” developed by Max Weber. Society is made up of a number of such groups, which are defined by indicators such as birth, occupation, way of life, and shared cultural practices; these groups are arranged in a hierarchy, and membership of a group determines one’s level of access to political power and other resources as well as shaping social behavior. This can clearly be seen in republican Rome, where “new men” like Cicero who aspired to join the established elite had to adopt wholesale the attitudes and customs of that elite, and where political rivals constantly sought to show how their opponents’ behavior was unworthy of their status; to be “slavish” in any respect was a devastating indictment. Considering such a status society, the crucial issue for historians is to explore how far the groups were closed and how far social mobility was possible; this involves consideration both of the actors’ perspective (Rome had a long-established hereditary elite which only rarely accepted new blood) and of the likely reality (the elite did not breed fast enough to replace itself, and so always depended on absorbing new members: Hopkins 1983).
In the absence of direct evidence, it is impossible to say whether the elite obsession with status was echoed in other groups. According to Cicero, manual labor, crafts and petty trade were “slavish” and so degrading (Off. 1.151); the fact that potters signed their work and merchants recorded their trading activities on their tombstones suggest that elite attitudes were not universally accepted. However, the main objection to the idea of status groups is not that they did not exist or did not affect individuals’ behavior, but that they were less important than other sorts of social groups. In particular, status divisions are seen to be secondary to class divisions. Following the ideas sketched out by Marx, society is understood in terms of different classes, defined by their position within the organization of production. Wealthy owners of land and other capital, free peasants with small plots of their own land, free laborers who needed to rent land or to hire themselves out to make a living, and different sorts of slaves, all had different ro