Proletarii
Proletarii The state, according to the Servian constitution, was divided into those who had property (locupletes) arranged in classes, and those who had not and were outside these classes; these unclassed citizens were called capite censi, i.e. reckoned by heads,
or proletarii, i.e. begetters of children
(Cic. de Rep. 2.22, 40; Gel. 16.10). These included all who were assessed at not more than 1500 asses: the distinction in civil matters is marked by the law of the Twelve Tables, that for a proletarius any one might act as vindex, while for the adsiduus (or locuples) an adsiduus was required [ACTIO]. As to their military service, see EXERCITUS Vol. I. p. 781. (Mommsen, Rom. Hist. 1.196; Staatsrecht, 3.238.)
From William Smith (ed.), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities. Text provided under a CC BY-SA license by Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Tufts University. Data accessed from https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-pdlrefwk/ on 17 October 2026.