And did class mobility exist? Were you, if you were born a slave, that was it? I mean, how did that work?

Um, there was class mobility, but it was, um, it was very limited.

Uh, the Romans were, um, because, uh, the, the people who, uh, weren't at the bottom of the, uh, the demographic piles, uh, they, they, they obviously made the rules, and it was very difficult for a plebeian to rise above, uh, plebeian status.

As I said, they weren't slaves, so they were one up on, on the slave population, which was considerable, uh, but got yet more considerable as time wore on.

And, and the more conquests Rome made, then obviously the more slaves, uh, were introduced into the population through conquest and prisoners of war.

But to go back to the original question, could you move up from, uh, being a plebeian to, uh, a pat- patrician, patrician? The answer to that is yes, you could, but it was very rare and, uh, it was unusual, and you can't be surprised to know that, uh, the people in the patrician class never did anything to make it very easy for that class mobility.

Examples of how it did actually, uh, become how the, how the working class people did get more rights, more civil rights, more human rights, and they did get more power politically, comes from the fact that, uh, something called, um, the, well, the, the sort of revolt of the people, um, started to happen quite early on in, uh, in Roman history, around about the sort of, um, uh, fourth, third, third century BC.

I wonder if you could maybe give us a few examples of sort of this herb was thought to help with this illness or something like that.

And did class mobility exist? Were you, if you were born a slave, that was it? I mean, how did that work?

There was class mobility, but it was very limited.

The Romans were, because the people who weren't at the bottom of the demographic piles, they obviously made the rules, and it was very difficult for a plebeian to rise above plebeian status.

As I said, they weren't slaves, so they were one up on on the slave population, which was considerable, but got yet more considerable as time went on.

And the more conquests Rome made, then obviously the more slaves were introduced into the population through conquest and prisoners of war.

But to go back to the original question, could you move up from being a plebeian to a patrician the answer to that is yes you could but it was very rare and it was unusual and you can't be surprised to know that the people in the patrician class never did anything to make it very easy for that class mobility examples of how it did actually become how the how the working class people did get more rights more civil rights more human rights and they did get more power politically, comes from the fact that something called the sort of revolt of the people started to happen quite early on in Roman history around about the sort of... for third century BC.

And you have a sort of a program of not civil unrest, although that did happen from time to time, but something called the conflict of the orders allowed Romans of the plebeian class to actually question the rule of the patricians you know, why can't we do this? Why don't we get a vote in this particular forum? Why is it that you have all the power? Why is it that we get none of the benefits of Roman imperialism? Why do we get none of the fruits of the spoils of war? So there was always a sort of a feeling of unrest bubbling under, and that was bound in the conflict of the orders, which weren't 200 years, why is it we can't get more power and a fairer, more equitable society? So the conflict of the orders in itself did ensure some social mobility.

I wonder if you could maybe give us a few examples of sort of this herb was thought to help with this illness or something like that?

Mm.

You know, childbirth was a very dangerous thing in those days, as you'll know.

Uh, they had to overcome, uh, incredibly bad sanitation, uh, and the disease that comes with that.

They had to survive very, uh, sort of, um, prolific illnesses like smallpox, plague, uh, syphilis.

Syphilis was, uh, rampant right through the period, and it was, it was spread not so much by women, but by their husbands, even in the sort of upper working sort of, uh, upper w- working class people, by visiting brothels and such like.

The aristocracy were the chief perper- perpet- perpetrators of it.

They spread it to their wives and sometimes to their unborn children.

Yeah.