Plebs
In ancient Rome, the
plebs was the general body of free Roman citizens who were not patricians, as determined by the census. Shopkeepers, crafts people, and skilled or unskilled workers might be
plebeian. From the 4th century BC or earlier, some of the most prominent and wealthy Roman families, as identified by their
gens name, were of plebeian status. Literary references to the
plebs, however, usually mean the ordinary citizens of Rome as a collective, as distinguished from the elite—a sense retained by "plebeian" in English. In the very earliest days of Rome, plebeians were any tribe without advisers to the King. In time, the word - which is related to the Greek word for crowd, plethos - came to mean the common people.