Who Were The Patricians of Rome
Forgotten History
The word patrician is casually yet used infrequently to describe someone who either enjoys the finer things of life, or perhaps has grander experience in a given field. However, many people do not know the origin of the words they throw around. The ancient word patrician is one that has fallen out of common speech as the ancient patricians themselves have fallen out of power where ever they once ruled. Here you shall learn of their origin and the meaning to their title.
The story of the patricians begins with the founding of Rome itself, where the twin brothers Romulus and Remus had argued over which hill the city would be built, and after varying accounts of the argument, the dispute was ended with the death of Remus. Romulus, the namesake of Rome, ploughed the boundaries of the Palatine hill for which he had chosen himself and made a sacrifice to the Gods to santify the founding of a new city on April 21, 753 BC.
Romulus became the sole ruler of his warrior following, and became their King, the first king of Rome, though many will argue over the historicity of Romulus, but that is a story for another time. The Kingdom of Rome began as a city state, and the followers of Romulus became its founders. These followers were largely male, in what may be described as a kóryos, or warband, as has been discussed before.
The Kingdom of Rome was a heavily patriarchical institution from even before its founding, lead by many elders from its several clans called paters, meaning the father or leader of a clan. Romulus gave each of these leaders a voice because he valued their expertise and council. With his sovereign power, Romulus formed the senate, the advising body of the king. The first senate consisted of only 100 senators, or elders, whose wise council was given to Romulus concerning all affairs of their new nation.
The senate Romulus created was however quite different in many respects to the senate of today’s age, but still carried with it the same essence as the senates of today. This shared essence is evidenced by the how the senate shares a root with the word senior, which is senex, and means elderly man. Today senate have become a wildly implemented institution around the world, and are still broadly controlled by elderly men of deeper experience.
These 100 senators became the founding stock of Rome, the first blood of a new kingdom. These men knew that they kingdom would require women for their mostly male population if their new kingdom was to ever have a chance at a grander future, which eventually lead them to commit great crimes against their neighbors in search of women to bear the children of their mighty warrior founders, further evidencing their warband origins.
The senate of Rome would go on to outlive Romulus, its founder, and even the entire regal period of Rome. The senate, which is now considered foundational to a republic, was even older than the Republic of Rome itself, and would outlast that period as well. Infact the Roman senate would go on to live well into the Roman empire, though growing and diminishing periods with the passing of new leaders throughout the centuries. The senate was controlled from its very founding in 753 BC until its final untimely dismantling in 603 AD by the paters of the first clans of Rome, and these paters formed the patrician class.
These patricians were the nobiles of Rome, the founding members of their ancient society, and held in high regard by all Roman citizens. This Aristocracy was the backbone of the Roman society, and controlled much of Rome’s power for the better part of its almost 1,000 year long history. These men and women were held above the plebeians, or commoners, of Rome for its entire history. This system of aristocracy is even more ancient than Rome, and reachs far back into the history of the Indo-Europeans which had migrated across Europe during the bronze age, and endured well passed the iron age and well into medieval times.
These patricians rarely ever intermingled with the commoners. The marriage between the two classes of people of patricians and plebeians was outlawed, and the founding stock was kept strong in its warrior blood. The decisions of the Roman aristocracy drove Rome to become a wildly successful kingdom, republic, and empire well after many of the surrounding nations had given up their traditions of nobility. These nobiles were responsible for much of the success of Rome, yet through modern eyes are often forgotten in their important roles as a driving force behind the hordes of plebeians they sent to conquere the Mediterranean.
To be a patrician is to be many things. It is to a father, a leader, a founder, a warrior, and most importantly it is to be a nobile. This word nobile is perhaps lost on the readers, but the blood of these men did not become nobile by birth, but instead their blood became nobile through their meritocracy which was passed onto their descendants through birth, hence why it was forbidden for the intermarriage of a commoner a nobile. The Romans knew their nation required a strong aristocracy to maintain proper order and dominance over their neighbors, and so the plebeians followed those nobiles with views ranging from jealous reluctance to greatful adoration.
In today’s world, the warrior aristocracies have been exchanged for mercantile elites. Through no conflict, except financial, has their power been seized, and their order been maintained. The elites of today are illegitimate leaders of the highest order, and their policies reflect their true feelings about the poor. They see themselves above you, and you see yourselves as trapped beneath their power. It is all however an illusion which is only kept alive by complacency in a very weak system of compliance and servitude, and many have fallen for it. Today I look around and see many slaves in a sytem which has captured their entire lives from top to bottom, but when I look into the eyes of certain men, I can still see the fury of the ancient men who they owe their thanks to for their far reaching history, the patricians of old. As always brothers, I am here with you in the abyss.
When do you think the importance of the patricians declined? Relatively and absolutely? And do you think it was because of inevitable changes in state and society? Or because of their own failures to maintain their standing and power?
I recall from a long ago University seminar on the Roman Republic that a major legal change, sometimes dated to 444 BC, but more often credited to the Sexto-Licenian Lex of 368BC permitted plebeians to marry patricians, as well as to hold the chief magistracy of the Republic, which would automatically admit them to the Senate.
At that point the word “nobiles” came in to use to describe an aristocracy of poor or dying out patrician families marrying rich and/or militarily accomplished plebeian families so that their children would have the best of both worlds. Like an impoverished late medieval Earl or Duke marrying his daughter to a prominent merchant or successful mercenary Captain in order to lift the families fortunes.
Caesar was a good example, claiming the Gens of both an ancient Patrician--the Julii--as well as descending from plebeian nobility.
Was this a mistake? The American historian writing about the Republic has tended to view plebeian enfranchisement and intermarriage as a key method of bringing talented new men into the oligarchy but older writers of the classical and medieval period viewed it as soiling the blood of the patricians and offending their religious rituals.
I’d love your view on that. Btw, big time fan/reader; first time commenter.
A series of social struggles saw the plebs secede from the city on three occasions, the last in 297 BC, until their demands were met. They won the right to stand for office, the abolition of the intermarriage law, and the creation of office of tribune of the plebs.
This office, founded in 494 BC as a result of a plebeian secession, was the main legal bulwark against the powers of the patrician class, and only plebeians were eligible. The tribunes originally had the power to protect any plebeian from a patrician magistrate.
Later revolts forced the Senate to grant the tribunes additional powers, such as the right to veto legislation. A tribune's person was sacrosanct, and he was obliged to keep an open house at all times while in office. Some patricians, notably Clodius Pulcher in the late 60s BC, petitioned to be assigned plebeian status, in order to accumulate the political influence among the people that the office of tribune afforded.
The conflict between the classes came to a climax in 287 BC when patricians and plebeians were declared equal under the law.
Following these changes the distinction between patrician and plebeian status became less important, and by the Late Republic the only patrician prerogatives were a few priesthoods.
Over time, some patrician families declined, some plebeian families rose in status, and the composition of the ruling class changed. A plebeian who was the first of his line to become consul was known as a novus homo ("new man"), and he and his descendants became "noble" (nobiles). Notable examples of novi homines are the seven-time consul Marius, and Cicero, whose rise was unusual in that it was driven by his oratorical and intellectual abilities rather than, as with Marius, military success. During the Empire, patricius became a title of nobility bestowed by emperors. https://www.crystalinks.com/romeclasstructure.html