ABSTRACT
The Latin term respublica (from which comes the word ‘republic’) is usually translated as ‘state’ or ‘commonwealth’. At no time was Rome a democracy (that is rule by the people) in the Greek, or true, sense. Its society was rigidly divided by legal status (free or enslaved) and by class. Free men or women were further classified, for example, according to whether they were so by birth or by release from slavery, were Roman citizens or Latins, or were independent or answerable to a guardian or other person in authority. The republic began, and finished, as a state largely dominated by the two upper ranks in the social hierarchy, the senators, who originally qualified by birth and wealth, and the equestrians or knights (equites), those in the second of the five categories to which people were allocated according to their means; until the second century BC, the latter were, by reason of their property holding, provided at public expense with a horse, with which they were required to report for military duty.
