Opinion: How to climb the social ladder in ancient Rome

Jerry Toner, Director of Studies in Classics, Churchill College, University of Cambridge, discusses the stratification of Roman society. It is easy to imagine ancient Rome as a society where the emperors, senators and other nobles sat on top of an undifferentiated, static mass of ordinary Romans (who in turn sat above the mass of slaves). But Roman society was, in fact, highly stratified throughout and people of all social levels went to great lengths to better their lot in life and climb the social ladder. Some even succeeded in joining the empire's richest ranks. The traditional view of the Roman people lounging around at the games ignores just how much they had to work. As Pliny the Younger noted when recommending a young man to a friend: 'He loves hard work as much as poor people usually do'. Most free men in the country were peasants and in the towns and cities were unskilled labourers, doing such jobs as carrying the goods imported to the docks of Rome at Ostia and working on building the great imperial buildings, such as the Colosseum.