Patricians
The patricians were a social order of Ancient Rome made up of the descendants of the thirty primitive curiae. The term comes from the Latin pater (father) in reference to to the founders, that is, to the first fathers of Rome. He is the senator par excellence and is part of the original nobility of the city, called nobility of blood and ilustrii or nobiles patritii , and by cultural background that of all Europe. Around the emperor and the patrician senators, the entire Roman society, culture and civilization will develop, culminating in the Roman Empire. The patrician branches of the Valerius, Fabii, Cornelios, Claudius, Aemilius and Manlios formed an aristocracy within the patriciate known as gentes mayores.
History of Roman society
The history of the patricians is that of the Roman Senate and that of Rome itself. They constituted a fundamental nobility and, after the scandals of the Roman Republic, a reduced and select aristocratic class, distinguished from the bulk of the Senate by the emperors to form their private chamber or council. With the generic word "patrician" those considered superior to the rest of the senators, plebeians incorporated into the Republic, were distinguished.
As the social and political weight of Rome increased in Lazio, the city's population did not stop growing, as a result of the immigration that the new pole of regional power was attracting. This flood of new citizens were called plebeians, as opposed to the descendants of the city's former inhabitants: the patricians.
During the Republic, in the context of the patrician-plebeian struggles, great changes were introduced, such as the expansion of citizenship, the limitation of the power of the consuls, the introduction of the tribunate of the plebs, the inclusion of the plebeians in the Senate, the election of curule magistracies by the elections by tribes, etc. Rome undergoes a slow but constant transformation, which will culminate in the Leges Liciniae-Sextiae and finally with the Hortensia Law. Patricians and plebeians will be equalized both politically and socially, so power will no longer be held exclusively by the patricians. Thus, sometime between 560 and 530 B.C. C. the population of plebeians exceeds that of patricians, becoming part of most of the ranks and classes of the Roman Army, which until then had been reserved for patricians.
The doctrine agrees that the struggles between patricians and plebeians began after the rigorous application of the laws against debtors, which allowed the creditor to deprive the insolvent debtor of his freedom and even sell him as a slave. The frequent wars against Lucio Tarquinio Prisco and his allies had forced the plebeians to contract debts with the patricians, and in the frequent cases of insolvency the patricians did not hesitate to make use of the right that the law granted them.
In the year 494 B.C. C. the first crisis broke out: the plebeian secession to Monte Sacro. It was then forced for the consul Publius Servilio Prisco Estructo to temporarily suspend the law regarding procedures, release some prisoners and prevent arrests for debts, conditions imposed by the commoners to return to arms. Fulfilled these conditions, they returned to the legions and participated in the campaign, but the following consul, Appio Claudio Sabino, reversed the situation, returning it to the primitive state prior to the campaign in which the patricians had priority over the plebeians.
This generated such a state of revolt among the plebeian population that it was necessary to appoint a dictator, a position that fell to the figure of another patrician, Manio Valerio. However, it was too late. The army, mostly commoners, abandoned their leaders and banners, marched in order, and withdrew to Crustumerium, between the Tiber and the Anio. He settled on a hill and made a promise to found a commoner city in one of the most fertile regions of Roman territory.
It was when the Senate of Rome, unable to do without the army, negotiated the return. Many concessions were agreed to for the commoners, the most notable being the creation of the commoners' tribunate. It was created to defend the interests of the people. Most of the rich plebeian families had joined the movement, so when talking about the struggles between the patriciate and the plebs one should not think exclusively of struggles between rich and poor. However, the time came when the commoner nobility separated from the rest of the commoners in claims, ceasing to fight for the same cause. If the former wanted to integrate into the constitutional order with equal privileges, the latter had more claims. concrete and simple, fundamentally economic, such as accessing the distribution of the ager publicus.
The consulate was exclusive to the patricians until the Leges Liciniae-Sextiae. From 367 to 342 B.C. C., the question was debated, with alternatives. From 342 to 172 B.C. C., there was a patrician consul and a plebeian one; and from 172 B.C. C. held the position, either a patrician and a plebeian or two plebeians, but never two patricians.
Despite everything, being a patrician was the highest and most coveted status in Roman society. Certain posts, especially religious, were reserved exclusively for them. In a society as proud and elitist as the Roman one, being a patrician, being a true Roman, was the greatest pride.
The patricians gradually languished. Forming the elite of Roman society, every time there was a civil war or a convulsion due to the change of an emperor, their ranks were decimated during or after the conflict by the winning side, in which, undoubtedly, there were also patricians..
The oldest gentes (clans) gradually disappeared. Those older ones, and those that had participated in the founding of Rome, slowly faded away as Rome began to be an Empire and new plebeian families, such as the Decians or the Sempronians, were acquiring positions of pre-eminence, occupying the spaces that the old ones had occupied. patrician families were no longer able to cover for lack of descendants.
Families such as the Horaces, Lucretii, Verginii, and Menenii disappeared from record entirely shortly after the 2nd century BCE. C., which does not mean that these families had become extinct. Others, like the Julios, disappeared for a long time only to reappear at the end of the Republic and the beginning of the Principality.
There are cases in which the same name was shared by a commoner family and a patrician family, even though they were two completely different branches and were not related to each other. Thus, for example, the Claudius Crassus and Claudius Sabines were patricians and the Claudius Marcellos were of plebeian origin.
At the end of the Republic and the beginning of the Principality of Augustus, only the following patrician families continued to give consuls regularly: Julius, Domitius, Pinarius, Postumius, Claudius, Valerius, Junius, Sergios, Servilius, and Cornelios.
At the time of Emperor Constantine I the Great, in the Lower Roman Empire, only the Valerians survived.
With the passage of time, the term patrician ceased to have the meaning that had been given until then, to mean 'aristocrat' or 'powerful', but without distinction of blood, until the to the point that, with the end of the Western Roman Empire, Odoacer, king of the Heruli and of Rome, was given the title patrician, by the Eastern Roman Emperor Zeno
Rights of the patricians
The patricians had for a long time the exclusive enjoyment of the rights of the city of Rome, becoming a privileged caste. They enjoyed political rights such as:
- ius sufragiithat made them vote in the elections;
- ius honorumwhich allowed them to occupy the judges;
- ius militaewhich enabled them to be chiefs of the Roman legions;
- ius ocuppandi agrum publicumthat authorized them to take possession of the conquered lands.
Regarding the religious sphere:
- ius priesterdotiiby which they could join the priestly schools;
- ius sacrorumwhich allowed them to worship the city;
- ius auspiciorumthe right to consult the aegis.
In terms of private rights they enjoyed:
- ius connubiithe legal aptitude to enter into legitimate marriage (ius nuptiae);
- ius commercithe right to conduct all kinds of legal business;
- ius actionisthe power to assert their rights in justice through an action (actio);
- right of use of three names (tria nomina): one individual (praenomen), another gentile (Nomen) and a family third (cognomen).