TOPIC: Conflict of the Orders
Timeline: from 494 BCE [first Secession of the Plebs] to 287 BCE [decisions of the Plebeian Assembly given the force of law]
MAIN QUESTION :
• What was the significance of the Conflict of the Orders in the development of the Roman Republic and in subsequent Western social and political history? Why does it matter?
QUESTION TO BE ANSWERED:
– What were the major issues in what historians call the Conflict [or Struggle] of the Orders in the early history of the Roman Republic?
– How did the plebeians resist patrician domination? [Put another way, how did the seemingly powerless majority group resist the domination of the powerful minority group?]
– What political rights did the plebeians gain in this conflict?
– How did these gains give them more power in the Republic?
– What are the larger implications of the outcome of this Conflict?
