Roman citizens

Roman Italy is the period of ancient Italian history going from the founding and rise of Rome to the decline and fall of the Western Roman Empire; the Latin name of the Italian peninsula in this period was Italia (continued to be used in the Italian language). According to Roman mythology, Italy was the ancestral home of Aeneas, being the homeland of the Trojans progenitor, Dardanus; Aeneas, instructed by Jupiter, moved to Italy after the fall of Troy, and his descendants, Romulus and Remus, were the founders of Rome. Aside from the legendary accounts, Rome was an Italic city-state that changed its form of government from Kingdom (ruled, between 753 BC and 509 BC, by seven kings) to Republic, and then grew within the context of a peninsula dominated by the Gauls, Ligures, Veneti, Camunni and Histri in the North; the Etruscans, Latins, Falisci, Picentes, Umbri and Sabines in the Centre; and the Iapygian tribes (such as the Messapians), the Oscan tribes (such as the Samnites) and Greek colonies in the South.

The consolidation of Italy into a single entity occurred during the Roman expansion in the peninsula, when Rome formed a permanent association with most of other the local tribes and cities; and Italy's inhabitants included Roman citizens, communities with Latin Rights, and socii. The strength of the Italian confederacy was a crucial factor in the rise of Rome, starting with the Punic and Macedonian wars between the 3rd and 2nd century BC. As Roman provinces were being established throughout the Mediterranean, Italy maintained a special status with political, religious and financial privileges. In Italy, Roman magistrates exercised the imperium domi (police power), as an alternative to the imperium militiae (military power) exercised in the provinces.

The socii (English: /ˈsoʊʃiaɪ/ SOH-shee-eye) or foederati (English: /ˌfɛdəˈreɪtaɪ/ FED-ə-RAY-ty) were confederates of Rome and formed one of the three legal denominations in Roman Italy (Italia) along with the core Roman citizens (Cives Romani) and the extended Latini. The Latini, who were simultaneously special confederates (Socii Latini) and semi-citizens (Cives Latini), derived their name from the Italic people of which Rome was part (the Latins) but did not coincide with the region of Latium in central Italy as they were located in colonies throughout the peninsula. This tripartite organisation lasted from the Roman expansion in Italy (509-264 BC) to the Social War (91–87 BC), when all peninsular inhabitants south of the Po river were awarded Roman citizenship.

Treaties known as foedus served as the basic template for Rome's settlement with the large array of tribes and city-states of the whole Italian peninsula. The confederacy had its origin in the foedus Cassianum ("Treaty of Cassius", 493 BC) signed by the fledgling Roman Republic with its neighbouring Latin city-states shortly after the overthrow of the Roman monarchy in 510 BC. This provided for mutual defence by the two parties on the basis of an equal contribution to the annual military levy, which was probably under Roman overall command. The terms of the treaty were probably more acceptable to the Latins than the previous type of Roman hegemony, that of the Tarquin kings, as the latter had probably required the payment of tribute and not a simple military obligation.

In ancient Rome, the plebeians or plebs were the general body of free Roman citizens who were not patricians, as determined by the census, or in other words "commoners". Both classes were hereditary.