We often oversimplify these social realities, defining the former as the richest and most powerful, and the latter as the humblest. However, the issue was more complex and is still debated today.

The term patricius derives from patres and refers not only to the fathers but also to the leaders of the gentes. According to Livy, they descended from the hundred patres who made up the Roman Senate created by Romulus. Plutarch offers a slightly different perspective: for him, the patricians were the first members of the Senate, who, after its foundation, were able to name their father. Additionally, the Greek biographer attributes another meaning to the term, viewing them as protectors with a vast client following. In this sense, the term would therefore be linked to the activity of Patronus.

Who were the plebeians, however? It is likely that the plebs became aware of their own identity thanks to the patricians, who used the term plebs to refer to those who were not like them. For what reasons? Economic factors have now been ruled out, since there were plebeians with even greater wealth than the patricians and with their own clientes, favoured above all by the fact that the plebs were primarily engaged in crafts and commerce. Among the nobilitas, in fact, activities not tied to the income from their landed estates or the profession of arms were frowned upon, although this did not prevent the patricians from relying on nominees to indirectly manage commercial activities.

Sociocultural and religious factors, therefore, remain to be considered.

One of the culminating moments of the conflict between the two sides was the drafting of the laws of the Twelve Tables, dating back to the mid-5th century BC; the plebeians, after a five-year battle, obtained a favorable revision, particularly regarding the right of connubium, that is, the possibility of marrying even with patricians, through the Lex Canuleia of 445 BC. This practice primarily allowed for the establishment of alliances and commercial relationships. Given the initial refusal to grant it to the plebs, we can hypothesise that the real differences between the two sides lay in ancestral family traditions, intertwined with religion, in which the patricians did not recognise the plebeians, as they were alien to them. The historian Kovaliov's hypothesis is suggestive: Matriarchal elements, typically Etruscan, that persisted among the plebeians were a likely cause of the patricians' hostility, organised on a rigidly patriarchal social and family level.