Patrician (ancient Rome)
The status of patricians gave them more political power than the plebeians, but the relationship between the groups eventually caused the Conflict of the Orders.
[2] Other noble families that came to Rome during the time of the kings were also admitted to the patriciate, including several who emigrated from Alba Longa, after that city was destroyed by Tullus Hostilius.
[3][4][5][6] The criteria applied by Romulus to choose certain men for this class remain contested by academics and historians, but the importance of the patrician/plebeian distinction is accounted by all as paramount to ancient Roman society.
The distinction between the noble class, the patricians, and the Roman populace, the plebeians, existed from the beginning of ancient Rome.
The patricians were given noble status when named to the Senate, giving them wider political influence than the plebeians, at least in the times of the early Republic.
During the middle and late Republic, as this influence gradually eroded, plebeians were granted equal rights in most areas, and even greater in some.
Originally patrician, Publius Clodius Pulcher willingly arranged to be adopted by a plebeian family in order to qualify to be appointed as the tribune of the plebs.
This view had political consequences, since in the beginning of the year or before a military campaign, Roman magistrates used to consult the gods.
By the end of the Republic, only priesthoods with limited political importance, such as the Salii, the Flamines, and the Rex Sacrorum, were filled exclusively by patricians.
Cassius states, "For the shoes worn by the patricians in the city were ornamented with laced straps and the design of the letter, to signify that they were descended from the original hundred men that had been senators.
A number of patrician families such as the Horatii, Lucretii, Verginii and Menenii rarely appear in positions of importance during the later republic.
As a result, several illustrious patrician houses were on the verge of extinction during the first century BC, sometimes only surviving through adoptions, such as: However, large gentes with multiple stirpes seem to have coped better; the Aemilii, Claudii, Cornelii, Fabii, Sulpicii, and Valerii all continued to thrive under the Principate.
After the Conflict of the Orders, according to Mathisen, Plebeians were able to rise in politics and become members of the Senate, which previously had been exclusively for patricians.
[18] By Julius Caesar's time so few of the patriciate were left that a special law was made, the Lex Cassia, for the enrollment of new patricians.
Whether this distinction had any legal significance is not known, but it has been suggested that the princeps senatus, or Speaker of the Senate, was traditionally chosen from the gentes maiores.
The Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology suggests that the gentes maiores consisted of families that settled at Rome in the time of Romulus, or at least before the destruction of Alba Longa.
The noble Alban families that settled in Rome in the time of Tullus Hostilius then formed the nucleus of the gentes minores.
This prestige gradually declined further, and by the end of the Crisis of the Third Century patrician status, as it had been known in the Republic, ceased to have meaning in everyday life.
The emperor Constantine the Great (r. 306–337) reintroduced the term as the empire's senior honorific title, not tied to any specific administrative position, and from the first limited to a very small number of holders.
[27] In the late Western Roman Empire, the title was sparingly used and retained its high prestige, being awarded, especially in the fifth century, to the powerful magistri militum who dominated the state, such as Stilicho, Constantius III, Flavius Aetius, Comes Bonifacius, and Ricimer.
The eastern emperor Zeno (r. 474–491) granted it to Odoacer to legitimize the latter's rule in Italy after his overthrow of the rebellious magister militum Orestes and his son Romulus Augustulus in 476.
Under Justinian I (r. 527–565), the title proliferated and was consequently somewhat devalued, as the emperor opened it to all those above illustris rank, i.e. the majority of the Senate.
[28] In the eighth century, in the Eastern Roman Empire, the title was further lowered in the court order of precedence, coming after the magistros and the anthypatos.
However it remained one of the highest in the imperial hierarchy until the eleventh century, being awarded to the most important strategoi (provincial governors and generals, allies) of the Empire.
