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The noble families of Rome were very few (they would not amount to
300), for the magistracies which conferred nobility were usually given
to men who were already noble.
=The Knights.=--Below the nobles were the knights. They were the rich
who were not noble. Their fortune as inscribed on the registers of the
treasury must amount to at least 400,000[120] sesterces. They were
merchants, bankers, and contractors; they did not govern, but they
grew rich. At the theatre they had places reserved for them behind the
nobles.
If a knight were elected to a magistracy, the nobles called him a "new
man" and his son became noble.
=The Plebs.=--Those who were neither nobles nor knights formed the
mass of the people, the plebs. The majority of them were peasants,
cultivating a little plat in Latium or in the Sabine country. They
were the descendants of the Latins or the Italians who were subjugated
by the Romans. Cato the Elder in his book on Agriculture gives us an
idea of their manners: "Our ancestors, when they wished to eulogize a
man, said 'a good workman,' 'a good farmer'; this encomium seemed the
greatest of all.
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