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PATRICIANS (Lat. patricius, an adject...
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See also:PATRICIANS (See also:Lat. patricius, an adjectival See also:form from See also:pater, See also:father; not, as some say, from pater and ciere, to See also:call) , a See also:term originally applied to the members of the old See also:citizen families of See also:ancient See also:Rome (see I. below). Under the later See also:Roman See also:Empire the name was revived by the See also:Byzantine emperors as the See also:title of a new See also:order of See also:nobility. Subsequently it was used as a See also:personal title of See also:honour for distinguished servants of See also:Constantine I. and his successors, and was conferred on See also:barbarian chiefs (II. below).. It was afterwards conferred by the popes on the Frankish See also:kings. In the See also:medieval See also:Italian republics, e.g. See also:Genoa and See also:Venice, the term was applied to the hereditary See also:aristocracy (patrizio), and in the See also:free cities of the See also:German Empire it was See also:borne by distinguished citizens (patrizier). In See also:Italy it is still used for the hereditary nobility. From these specific uses the word has come into See also:general use as a synonym of " aristocrat " or " See also:noble," and implies the See also:possession of such qualities as are generally associated with See also:long descent, hereditary See also:good breeding and the like. In See also: From the earliest See also:period known to us the free populationof Rome contains two elements, patricians and plebeians, the former class enjoying all See also:political privileges, the latter unprivileged. The derivation and significance of the two names have been established with certainty. The patricians (patricii) are those who can point to fathers, i.e. those who are members of the clans (genies) whose members originally comprised the whole citizen body. The plebeians (See also:plebs, plebes) are the See also:complement (from See also:root pleo, fill, see PLEBS) of the noble families possessing a See also:genealogy, and include all the free See also:population other than the patricians. It has been held by T. See also:Mommsen that the plebeian order had its See also:sole origin in the clients who attached themselves in a position of semi-freedom to the heads of patrician houses, and gradually evolved a freedom and citizenship of their own (see See also:PATRON AND CLIENT). The logical consequence of this view is that the plebs as an order in the See also:state is of considerably later growth than the beginning of the See also:city, the patricians being originally the only freemen and the only citizens. But this view is untenable on two grounds. First, in the struggle between the two orders for political See also:privilege we find the clients struggling on the See also:side of the patricians against the See also:main body of the plebeians (See also:Livy ii. 56). Again, a method of taking up Roman citizenship which is well attested for a very See also:early period reveals the possibility of a plebeian who does not stand in any relation to a patron. When an immigrant moved to Rome from one of the cities of the Latin See also:league, or any city which enjoyed the See also:jus commercii with Rome, and by the exercise of the right of voluntary See also:exile from his own state (jus exulandi), claimed Roman citizenship, it is impossible to suppose that it was necessary for him to make application to a Roman patron to represent him in his legal transactions; for the jus commercii gave its holder the right of suing and being sued in his own See also:person before Roman courts. Such an immigrant, therefore, must have become at once a free plebeian citizen of Rome. It may therefore be assumed that long before the clients obtained the right to hold See also:land in their own names and appear in the courts in their own persons there was a free plebs existing alongside of the patricians enjoying limited rights of citizenship. But it is equally certain that before the See also:time of Servius Tullius the rights and duties of citizenship were practically exercised only by the members of the patrician clans. This is perhaps the explanation of the See also:strange fact that the clients, who through their patrons were attached to these clans, obtained political recognition as early as the plebeians who had no such semi-servile taint. At the time of the Servian reforms both branches of the plebs had a plausible claim to recognition as members of the state, the clients as already partial members of the See also:curia and the gens, the unattached plebeians as equally free with the patricians and possessing clans of their own as solid and See also:united as the recognized genies. But not only can it be shown that patricians and plebeians coexisted as distinct orders in the Roman state at an earlier date than the See also:evolution of citizenship by the clients. It has further been established on strong archaeological and linguistic See also:evidence that the long struggle between patricians and plebeians in early Rome was the result of a racial difference between them. There is See also:reason to believe that the patricians were a See also:Sabine See also:race which conquered a Ligurian See also:people of whom the plebeians were the survivors (see ROME: History). Apart from the definite evidence, the theory of a racial distinction gains See also:probability from the fact that it explains the survival of the distinction between the patricii, men with a See also:family and genealogy, and the See also:rest of the citizens, for some time after the latter had acquired the legal status of patres and were organized in gentes of their own; for on this theory privilege would belong not to all who could trace free descent but only to those who could trace descent to an ancestor of the conquering race. The family organization of the conquering race was probably higher than that of the conquered, and was only gradually attained by the latter. Thus descent from a father would be distinctive enough of the dominant race to form the title of that race (patricii), and when that term had been definitely adopted as the title of a class its persistence in the same sense after the organization of the family and the See also:clan by the unprivileged class would be perfectly natural. The absurdity of excluding the plebeians from all but a merely theoretical citizenship, based on the negative fact of freedom, seems to have become apparent before the See also:close of the monarchical period. The aim of the reforms associated with the name of Servius Tullius appears to have been the See also:imposition of the duties of citizenship upon the plebeians. Incidentally this involved an See also:extension of plebeian privilege in two directions. First, it was necessary to unify the plebeian order by putting the legal status of the clients on a level with that of the unattached plebeians; and again enrolment in the See also:army involved See also:registration in the tribes and centuries; and as the army soon See also:developed into a legislative See also:assembly See also:meeting in centuries (See also:comitia centuriata), the whole citizen body, including plebeians, now acquired a See also:share of political See also:power, which had hitherto belonged solely to the patricians. At the close of the See also:monarchy, the plebeian possessed the private rights of citizenship in entirety, except for his inability to See also:contract a legal See also:marriage with a patrician, and one of the public rights, that of giving his See also:vote in the assembly.' But in the See also:matter of liability to the duties of citizenship, military service and See also:taxation, he was entirely on a level with the patrician. This position was probably tolerable during the monarchy, when the See also: But while the patrician disabilities were of a See also:kind that had gained in importance with the See also:lapse of centuries, these privileges, even if still retained, had become merely formal in the second See also:half of the republican period. Since the plebeian See also:element in the state had an immense numerical preponderance over the patrician these disabilities were not widely spread, and seem generally to have been cheerfully borne as the See also:price of belonging to the families still recognized as the See also:oldest and noblest in Rome. But the See also:adoption of P. See also:Clodius Pulcher into a plebeian family in 59 B.C. with a view to See also:election to the tribunate shows that a rejection of patrician rights (transitio ad plebem) was not difficult to effect by any patrician who preferred actual power to the dignity of ancient descent. It was not so easy to recruit the ranks of the patricians. The traditions of early Rome indeed represent the patricians as receiving the Claudii by a collective See also:act into their body; but the first authenticated instance of the admission of new members to the patriciate is that of the lex See also:Cassia, which authorized See also:Caesar as See also:dictator to create fresh patricians. The same See also:procedure 'Cf. the privileges of the Athenians under the Solonian See also:system see See also:SOLON; See also:ECCLESIA; See also:ARCHON).was followed by See also:Augustus. Later on, the right of creating patricians came to be regarded as inherent in the principate, and was exercised by See also:Claudius and See also:Vespasian without any legal enactment, apparently in their capacity as See also:censor (Tac. See also:Ann. xi. 25; Vita M. Antonini, i.). Patrician See also:rank seems to have been regarded as a necessary attribute of the princeps; and in two cases we are told that it was conferred upon a plebeian princeps by the senate ( Vita Juliani, 3; Macrini, 7). A comparison of this procedure with the See also:original conception of the patriciate as revealed by the derivation of the word, is significant of the history of the conception of nobility at Rome, and illustrative of the tenacity with which the See also:Romans clung to the name and form of an institution which had long lost its significance. After the political equalization of the two orders, noble See also:birth was no longer recognized as constituting a claim to political privilege. Instead of the old hereditary nobility, consisting of the members of the patrician clans, there arose a nobility of See also:office, consisting of all those families, whether patrician or plebeian, which had held See also:curule office. It was now the See also:tenure of office that conferred distinction. In the early days of Rome, office was only open to the member of a patrician gens. In the principate, patrician rank, a sort of abstract conception based upon the earlier state of affairs, was held to be a dignity suitable to be conferred on an individual holder of office. But the conferment of the rank upon an individual as distinct from a whole family (gens) is enough to show how widely the See also:modern conception of patrician rank differed from the ancient. The explanation of this is that the plebeians had long been organized, like the patricians, in gentes, and nothing remained distinctive of the old nobility except a vague sense of dignity and See also:worth. (A.M.CL.) II. Under Constantine an entirely new meaning was given to the word Patrician. It was used as a personal title of honour conferred for distinguished services. It was a title merely of rank, not of office; its holder ranked next after the See also:emperor and the See also:consul. It naturally happened, however, that the title was generally bestowed upon officials, especially on the See also:chief provincial See also:governors, and even among barbarian chieftains whose friendship was valuable enough to call forth the imperial See also:benediction. Among the former it appears to have become a sort of ex officio title of the Byzantine vicegerents of Italy, the exarchs of See also:Ravenna; among the barbarian chiefs who were thus dignified were See also:Odoacer, See also:Theodoric, See also:Sigismund of See also:Burgundy, See also:Clovis, and even in later days princes of See also:Bulgaria, the See also:Saracens, and the See also:West See also:Saxons. The word thus acquired an See also:official See also:connotation. The dignity was not hereditary and belonged only to individuals; thus a patrician family was merely one whose See also:head enjoyed the rank of patricius. Gradually the root sense of " father " came to the front again, and the patricius was regarded as the " father of the emperor " (Ammian Marc. See also:xxix. 2). With the word were associated such further titles as eminentia, magnitudo, magnificentia. Those patricians who were purely honorary were called honorarii or codicillarii; those who were still in See also:harness were praesentales. They were all distinguished by a See also:special See also:dress or See also:uniform and in public always drove in a See also:carriage. The emperor See also:Zeno enacted that no one could become patricius who had not been praejectus militum, consul or magister militum, but less careful emperors gave the title to their favourites, however See also:young and undistinguished. The See also:writ in which the title was conferred was called a diploma. A further See also:change in the meaning of the name is marked by its conferment on See also:Pippin the See also:Frank' by See also:Pope See also:Stephen. The See also:idea of this extension originated no doubt in the fact that the Italian patricius of the 6th and 7th centuries had come to be regarded as the defensor, See also:protector, patronus of the Church. At all events, the conferring of the title by a pope was entirely unprecedented; previously its validity had depended on the emperor solely. As a matter of fact it is clear that the patriciate of Pippin was a new office, especially as the title is henceforward generally patricius Romanorum, not patricius alone. It was
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