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Updated: June 19, 2025
Under such circumstances the only wonder is that the Roman patriciate did not disappear much more rapidly than it actually did.
The non-patrician families of wealth and consideration had long ago separated from the plebs, and leagued themselves with the patriciate in the participation of senatorial rights and in the prosecution of a policy distinct from that of the plebs and very often counteracting it.
New Opposition Every aristocratic government of itself calls forth a corresponding opposition party; and as the formal equalization of the orders only modified the aristocracy, and the new ruling order not only succeeded the old patriciate but engrafted itself on it and intimately coalesced with it, the opposition also continued to exist and in all respects pursued a similar course.
Nay! if the patriciate of Rome had its will with thee, it would have thee publicly whipped and branded like the arrogant menial that thou art! This and more did my lord Hortensius say," continued Licinia, whose voice now had sunk to an awed whisper at the recollection of the sacrilege; "I hardly dared to breathe for I could see the praefect's face, and could think of naught save the wrath of Jupiter, when on a sultry evening the thunder clouds are gathering in the wake of the setting sun."
As it was now no longer the plebeian burgesses as such, but the common people, that were treated as inferior, the new opposition professed from the first to be the representative of the lower classes and particularly of the small farmers; and as the new aristocracy attached itself to the patriciate, so the first movements of this new opposition were interwoven with the final struggles against the privileges of the patricians.
Opposition of the Patriciate But notwithstanding these vexatious disabilities the privileges of the clans, so far as they had a political value, were legally superseded by the new institution; and, had the Roman nobility been worthy of its name, it must now have given up the struggle. But it did not.
Of course the conquered, whether transferred or not, were ordinarily compelled to occupy the legal position of clients; but particular individuals or clans occasionally had burgess-rights or, in other words, the patriciate conferred upon them.
Had it been willing to admit the wealthy and respectable plebeians to full equality of rights possibly by connecting the acquisition of the patriciate with admission into the senate both might long have governed and speculated with impunity.
Germs of the Nobility in the Patriciate The Roman nobility attached itself, in form, to earlier institutions belonging to the times of the patriciate. Persons who once had filled the highest ordinary magistracies of the state not only, as a matter of course, practically enjoyed all along a higher honour, but also had at an early period certain honorary privileges associated with their position.
This was the -abrogatio-. In the ordinary course of law burgess-rights could only be acquired by birth and could never be lost unless the community should confer the patriciate or allow its surrender; neither of which acts, doubtless, could be validly done originally without a decree of the curies.
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