Patricians were the upper class in the early republic.
Step-by-step explanation:
The Patricians were the wealthy upper class of the roman people who had the right to run the government and the republic. They were wealthy and considered everyone else to be plebeians and not worthy of titles.
The issue with the patricians was that you had to be born as one to be a apart of them, effectively making the early republic to be a hierarchical order itself as only the Patricians ran the Early republic in Rome.