The Rise of the Roman Republic
Storyboard Text
- The Rise of the Roman Republic
- A Plebeian's Perspective
- We need to do something!
- The Rise of the Roman Republic from a Plebeian's perspective.
- We aren't going back until we gain rights!
- A long time ago, in 509 BCE, a group of patricians drove out the last Etruscan king. They developed a republic instead. In this republic though, only the patricians could participate and we had to obey them. This was very unfair.
- Okay fine! We will give you a little bit more rights and power!
- Only 5% of Rome's population was patrician. This meant that 95% of Rome was plebeian and we had no power. Because of these horrible patricians, we had to unite and fight for what we wanted. What we wanted was political rights and equality.
- Now we all have equal rights!
- In 494 B.C.E, the Roman population had grown and us plebeians STILL didn't have much power. We decided to take other measures to make sure our important message got through. In short, we marched out of the city and camped on a nearby hill. We would not return until we had our demands met.
- Without us plebeians in the city, the patricians couldn't do anything, and if an enemy chose to attack there would be nobody to defend our city. The patricians had no choice but to compromise. Even though this had happened we still didn't have equal power to the patricians. In 451 B.C.E the patricians agreed with us that the laws should be written down so nobody could change them at will, this was and amazing accomplishment.
- In 367 B.C.E a new law was created that stated that at least 1 of the 2 consuls had to be a plebeian. This new law also allowed plebeians like us to become senators. Finally, in 287 B.C.E we earned the right to pass laws for all Roman citizens! These new changes were amazing and we now had the same equal rights as the patricians!
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