[112] VI. 40. 6. The speaker contrasts ingenui with patricii.

[113] Plut. Q. R. 58: Those who were first constituted senators by Romulus were called patres and patricii as being men of good birth, who could show their pedigree. In its adjectival and adverbial uses ingenuus connotes not the quality of free birth, but respectability, nobility. The original meaning is “born within,” hence indigenous, native; cf. Forcellini, Totius Latinitatis Lexicon, s. v. In this sense it could not apply to the patricians, who generally claimed a foreign origin. But native is superior to alien; doubtless in this secondary meaning of excellence it attached to the nobility, the close relation of the word to gens (family, lineage) attracting it in that direction. Afterward it was so democratized as to include all the freeborn. With this meaning we find it as early as Plautus, Mil. 784, 961. According to Dionysius, ii. 8. 3, the identification of patricii with ingenui in its sense of freeborn was accepted not by the most trustworthy historians, but by certain malicious slanderers: “Some say they were called patricians because they alone could cite their fathers, the rest being fugitives and unable to cite free fathers.”

[114] P. 30.

[115] The word is probably derived from the same root as populus; Corssen, Ausspr. i. 368; cf. p. 1, n. 3 above.

[116] Rep. ii. 9. 16.

[117] ii. 9. 2.

[118] Notably among the Sabines, Livy ii. 16. 4; Dion. Hal. ii. 46. 3.

[119] Cicero, Rep. ii. 9. 16; Dion. Hal. ii. 9. 2.

[120] Cf. the citations in Mommsen, Röm. Staatsr. iii. 71, n. 1. Dionysius, ii. 63. 3, distinguished the two classes as early as the interregnum which followed Romulus.

[121] Dion. Hal. v. 40. 3; vi. 47. 1; vii. 19. 2; x. 43. As late as 134 Scipio called his clients to follow him to the Numantine war; Appian, Iber. 84.

[122] Livy iii. 58. 1.

[123] Dion. Hal. ii. 10. 3.

[124] Livy ii. 56. 3; 64. 2; Dion. Hal. ii. 10. 3; iv. 23. 6; ix. 41. 5.

[125] Dion. Hal. ii. 10. 3 (it was not lawful for either patron or client to vote against the other). Marius, a client of Herennius, was elected to the praetorship; Plut. Mar. 5. A law declared that election to a curule office (according to Plutarch, or as Marius asserted to any office) freed a man and his family from clientage. Evidently this law was passed in or after 367 B.C. Mucius, a client of Ti. Gracchus, was elected to the plebeian tribunate; Plut. Ti. Gracch. 13. Cn. Flavius, who was the son of a freedman and probably therefore a client, was elected curule aedile for 304; Livy ix. 46. 1; Val. Max. ii. 5. 2.

[126] Gaius 1. 3: “Plebs autem a populo eo distat, quod populi appellatione universi cives significantur connumeratis etiam patriciis; plebis autem appellatione sine patriciis ceteri cives significantur.” Evidently Pomponius held the same view; Dig. i. 2. 2. 1-6; cf. Capito, in Gell. x. 20. 5; Fest. 233. 29; 330. 19; Isid. Etym. ix. 6. 5 f.; Mommsen, Röm. Staatsr. iii. 4, n. 2.

[127] Cicero, Rep. ii. 12. 23; Livy i. 8. 7; Zon. vii. 9; Isid. Etym. ix. 6. 6.

[128] Illustrations of this common use are Cicero, Rep. ii. 8. 14; 12. 23; Livy ii. 54. 3; iv. 51. 3; x. 13. 9; xxv. 2. 9; 3. 13; 3. 16; xxx. 27. 3; xxxiv. 54. 4; xxxvii. 58. 1; xliii. 8. 9. The Greeks always regard populus as the equivalent of δῆμος; cf. Plut. Rom. 13. Not only does the tribune in addressing the plebs call them populus Romanus (Sall. Iug. 31), but the consuls also apply the term to the same class (Livy xxv. 4. 4); and a statement of Cicero (Leg. Agr. ii. 7. 17), which has the appearance of a legal definition, makes the people of the thirty-five tribes under a tribune the universus populus Romanus.

[129] Röm. Forsch. i. 172.

[130] Cic. Fam. x. 35; Verr. v. 14. 36; Mur. 1. 1; Livy xxix. 27. 2: Tac. Ann. 1. 8; Macrob. Sat. 1. 17. 28; cf. Mommsen, Röm. Forsch. i. 169, n. 4.

[131] E.g. senatui populo plebique Romanae; Cicero, Fam. x. 35 (address).

[132] Mommsen, Röm. Staatsr. iii. 6, n. 4; Soltau, Altröm. Volksversamml. 84.

[133] For the division of the populus into tribes and curiae, see Cic. Rep. ii. 8. 14; Livy i. 13. 6; Dion. Hal. ii. 7. 2; App. B. C. iii. 94. The author of Vir. Ill. 2. 12, in supposing that the plebs alone were assigned to the tribes is certainly wrong; but his mistake is pardonable in view of the general agreement among our sources that the populus, πλῆθος, contained in the curiae were mainly plebeian.

[134] Cic. Rep. ii. 7. 13; 8. 14; 18. 33; Livy i. 13. 4; 13. 6; 28. 7; 30. 1; 33. 1-5; Dion. Hal. ii. 46. 2 f.; 47. 1; 50. 4 f.; 55. 6; iii. 29. 7; 30. 3; 31. 3; 37. 4; 48. 2; iv. 22. 3.

[135] Cf. Dion. Hal. ii. 8. 4.

[136] Livy i. 17. 11; 35. 2; 43. 10; 46. 1; Dion. Hal. ii. 10. 3; 14. 3; 60. 3; 62. 3; iv. 12. 3; 20. 2.

[137] Cf. Lectures on the History of Rome, i. 80, 83: “I beg you to mark this well ... that even ingenious and learned men like Livy and Dionysius did not comprehend the ancient institutions and yet have preserved a number of expressions from their predecessors from which we, with much labor and difficulty, may elicit the truth.”

[138] The school of Mommsen, which still clings to Niebuhr’s theory of an exclusively patrician populus, has abandoned the attempt to support it by a reconstruction of lost sources.

[139] The late regal period may have left a few documents which, if used by the annalists, might have thrown light on the condition of that time. It has not yet been determined whether the inscription recently found in the Roman Forum belongs to the late regal or to the early republican period.

[140] Mommsen, Röm. Staatsr. iii. 69, grants to the ancients far more knowledge of their own history, but claims a “wider horizon.”

[141] Niebuhr treats Dionysius with great respect; cf. Lectures, i. liv: “The longer and more carefully the work is examined, the more must true criticism acknowledge that it is deserving of all respect, and the more it will be found a storehouse of most solid information.” Schwegler, Röm. Gesch. i. 621 f., and 626 f., assumes that Dionysius is alone responsible for the view that the plebeians were in the primitive tribes and the curiae. A glance at the citations given above, p. 24 f., will show, however, that Cicero and Livy shared this view.

[142] Cf. Pais, Storia di Roma, I. 1. 82. The usual opinion (cf. Bernhöft, Röm. Königsz. 8 f.) is that the sources of Dionysius are later and less trustworthy than those of Livy, but Pais asserts that on the whole the two authors drew from the same sources.

[143] Röm. Gesch. i. 339, Eng. 165.

[144] Lectures on Roman History, i. 81, 100 f.

[145] Röm. Gesch. i. 332, Eng. 158.

[146] In ibid. i. 330, Eng. 162, he excludes the “freed clients” from the gens; in 339, Eng. 165, he states that the nobles alone had the gens, the clients belonged to it in a dependent capacity.

[147] Cf. the edition of Sandys, 252; Rose, Aristotelis Frag. 385.

[148] Röm. Gesch. i. 326, Eng. 160. Genz, Patricisches Rom, 6, has the same idea.

[149] Il. ii. 362 f.; ix. 63 f.

[150] CIA. i. 61; cf. Dem. xliii. 57.

[151] This is illustrated, for instance, by a law quoted by Philochorus, in Müller, Frag. Hist. Graec. i. 399. 94: Τοὺς δὲ φράτορας ἐπάναγκες δέχεσθαι καὶ τοὺς ὀργεῶνας καὶ τοὺς ὁμογάλακτας, οὺς γεννῆτας καλοῦμεν (“The members of the phratry must receive the orgeones as well as the homogalaktes, whom we call gennetae”). This fact is now too well known to need further proof; cf. Gilbert, Constitutional Antiquities of Sparta and Athens, 148 f.; Thumser, Griechische Staatsaltertümer, 324 f.

[152] P. 11.

[153] Top. 6. 29: “Gentiles sunt inter se, qui eodem nomine sunt. Non est satis. Qui ab ingenuis oriundi sunt. Ne id quidem satis est. Quorum maiorum nemo servitutem servivit. Abest etiam nunc. Qui capite non sunt deminuti. Hoc fortasse satis est. Nihil enim video Scaevolam pontificem ad hanc definitionem addidisse;” cf. Cincius, in Fest. ep. 94.

As the word itself indicates, gentiles are members of a gens, and no other members are known to the sources. If it were true, as Mommsen, Röm. Staatsr. iii. 66, supposes, that there were dependent members not termed gentiles, a name would have been given this dependent relation, or the jurists would have defined it, or some ancient writer would at least have mentioned it. The attempt of Kübler, Wochenschr. f. kl. Philol. xxv (1908). 541 f., to prove, on the authority of Cicero, Tim. 11. 41, that clients were termed quasi gentiles is simply absurd. The passage does not even hint at clientage; and the quasi gentiles of the immortal gods, according to this passage, were related to the gods by birth, as the word gignatis proves. From this point of view men might be called the children of the gods; but because the divine element in both men and gods comes alike from the Creator, it is possible to place them more nearly on a level with one another—in a relation like that of gentiles. Kübler’s other remarks on the gens, 539-43, are equally unconvincing.

[154] Cic. Brut. 16. 32; Livy iv. 16. 3; Suet. Aug. 2. Whether these two gentes had ever been patrician does not affect the question at issue.

[155] Val. Max. ix. 2. 1.

[156] Cic. Har. Resp. 15. 32, mentions sacrificia gentilicia of the Calpurnia.

[157] Suet. Ner. 1.

[158] Cic. Dom. 13. 35.

[159] Fest. ep. 23.

[160] Varro, R. R. i. 2. 10.

[161] Unless Sp. Cassius, consul 502, 493, 486 B.C. and author of the first agrarian rogation, is a myth; cf. Drumann-Gröbe, Gesch. Roms, ii. 94.

[162] Cf. Cic. Orat. i. 39. 176. The patrician and plebeian branches are sometimes spoken of as distinct gentes; Suet. Tib. 1.

[163] Mommsen, Röm. Forsch. i. 113 f.; Drumann-Gröbe, ibid. 359.

[164] Cic. Phil. i. 13. 32; Gell. ix. 2. 11; Fest. ep. 125.

[165] Mommsen, ibid. 116.

[166] L. Poplilius Volscus, patrician; Livy v. 12. 10. Q. Publilius Philo, plebeian; Livy viii. 15. 9.

[167] This patrician gens included an Aebutius who was tribune of the plebs (Cic. Leg. Agr. ii. 8. 21) and several other plebeians; Klebs, in Pauly-Wissowa, Real-Encycl. i. 442 f.

[168] Mommsen, ibid. 117 ff.

[169] V. 14. 4: “Comitiis auspicato quae fierent indignum dis visum honores volgari discriminaque gentium confundi.”

[170] Dom. 13. 35: “Ita perturbatis sacris, contaminatis gentibus, et quam deseruisti et quam poluisti.”

[171] Sall. Iug. 95. 3; Livy iii. 27. 1; 33. 9; vi. 11. 2; Gell. x. 20. 5; cf. ix. 2. 11.

[172] L. L. viii. 4: “Ut in hominibus quaedam sunt agnationes ac gentilitates, sic in verbis.”

[173] In Lib. Praen. 3.

[174] It will suffice to quote Gaius iii. 17: “Si nullus agnatus sit, eadem lex XII Tabularum gentiles ad hereditatem vocat”; cf. Cic. Verr. i. 45. 115: “Lege hereditas ad gentem Minuciam veniebat.” The Minucian gens was plebeian. Its right to the inheritance in question rested on this law of the Twelve Tables. For the gentile right of tutelage, see the so-called Laudatio Turiae, 15, 22 (CIL. vi. 1527; Girard, Textes, 778).

[175] Cf. p. 20; see also Auct. Inc. De Diff. 527 (Keil): “Gens seriem maiorum explicat.”

[176] E.g. “Family will take a person everywhere”; C. D. Warner, quoted by the Standard Dictionary, s. v.

[177] Mommsen’s theory of the gens—a development from Niebuhr’s—is criticized in Pol. Sci. Quart. xxii (1907). 668 f. The distinction between patrician gentes and plebeian stirpes, on which he especially relies, is there shown to be groundless.

[178] Gell. xv. 27. 2.

[179] II. 8. 4.

[180] Sén. Rom. ii. 34 f.

[181] Röm. Forsch. i. 233 f.; 247 f.; cf. Genz, Patr. Rom, 70. On the patrum auctoritas, see p. 235 below.

[182] E.g. Röm. Gesch. ii. 359; iii. 168; Eng. ii. 147; iii. 73: “the common council of the patres—the curies.”

[183] Cic. Frag. A. vii. 48; Livy ii. 56, especially § 3; Dion. Hal. vi. 89. 1; ix. 41.

[184] Livy xxvii. 8. 3.

[185] Mommsen, Röm. Forsch. i. 148.

[186] Cic. Leg. Agr. ii. 12. 31.

[187] Cic. Dom. 14. 38; Livy vi. 41. 10.

[188] P. 185 below; cf. Mommsen, Röm. Forsch. i. 147 f.

[189] In the face of all evidence to the contrary two or three scholars persist in maintaining essentially the opinion of Niebuhr that through the republic the curiae continued patrician. Herzog, Röm. Staatsverf. i. 98 f., 108, 1014, n. 2, imagines that from the beginning the clients belonged to the curia in its administrative capacity, shared in its sacra, attended its meetings, but did not vote. The plebs, however, were not even passive members. His reasons do not deserve mention. Vassis, Ῥωμαών Πολιτεία ἡ βασιλευομένη κα ἡ ἐλευθέρα (Athens, 1903), also excludes the commons from the curiate assembly throughout its history. The fancies of Hoffmann, Patr. und pleb. Curien, need not detain us.

[190] Röm. Gesch. i. 623 f.

[191] Cf. p. 152, 172.

[192] Cf. p. 170, 172.

[193] P. 173 ff., 345.

[194] P. 75, 96, 209.

[195] Röm. Gesch. i. 625, n. 3.

[196] Röm. Forsch. i. 140 f.

[197] Röm. Forsch. i. 269; Röm. Staatsr. iii. 92. Clason, Krit. Erört. über den röm. Staat, 12, supposes they were admitted by the Ogulnian law, in 300. Genz, Patr. Rom, 41, 62, places their admission not earlier than the institution of the Servian tribes and not later than the decemvirate, greatly preferring the latter date.

[198] Röm. Staatsr. iii. 13; Abriss, 5.

[199] Röm. Staatsr. iii. 54 f.

[200] Ibid. iii. 91.

[201] Ibid. iii. 63.

[202] Ibid. iii. 67 f.

[203] Ibid. i. 91, n. 1; cf. Lange, Röm. Alt. i. 261 f. Reference here is only to the auspicia publica of the magistrates. It is established below (p. 101 ff.) that from the beginning the plebeians had a right to private auspices.

[204] Röm. Staatsr. iii. 77.

[205] Cf. Töpffer, Attische Genealogie, 177.

[206] Altröm. Volksversamml. 93.

[207] Röm. Staatsr. iii. 109.

[208] P. 69.

[209] Röm. Forsch. i. 106 f. and n. 80.

[210] Röm. Staatsr. iii. 13.

[211] Rep. ii. 20. 35: “Duplicavit illum pristinum patrum numerum et antiquos patres maiorum gentium appellavit, quos priores sententiam rogabat, a se adscitos minorum.” The connection shows that Cicero is speaking of two classes of senators distinguished by the rank of the gentes from which they respectively came.

[212] P. 28 f.

[213] P. 11 f.

[214] Röm. Staatsr. iii. 14.

[215] P. 17 f. and notes.

[216] P. 20 f.

[217] For the sources, see Schwegler, Röm. Gesch. i. 459 f.; Stengel, in Pauly-Wissowa, Real-Encycl. ii. 1885.

[218] Andeutungen über den urspr. Religionsunterschied der röm. Patr. und Pleb. 1 f.

[219] Cf. Livy xxxv. 51. 2; Serv. in Aen. ii. 761. Schwegler, ibid. 464-8, who insists on this fact, shows clearly that no historical value attaches to the myth; see also Pais, Storia di Roma, I. i. 218, n. 1.

[220] Pais, ibid. 217 ff. Dionysius, i. 4. 2 f., expressly states that this story is a Greek falsification.

[221] See the examples collected by Pais, ibid.

[222] Cf. Livy i. 8. 5.

[223] Cf. ibid. ii. 1. 4.

[224] Dionysius, i. 85. 3, states that the colonists from Alba were mostly plebeians, but that a considerable number of the highest nobility accompanied them. It is a significant fact, however, that no patrician family is known to have derived its origin from this earliest colony. Those who claimed Alban and Trojan descent preferred to connect their admission to citizenship with the Roman annexation of Alba Longa, e.g. the Tullii, Servilii, Quinctii, Geganii, Curiatii, and Cloelii; Livy i. 30. 2. On the Alban and Sabine origin of most of the nobility, Livy iv. 4. 7. In so far as the local cognomina are indicative of origin (cf. Willems, Sén. Rom. i. 11 ff.), they point to a diversity of foreign connections. The Tarquinian gens, which in later time was thought of as patrician, came from Etruria, ultimately from Greece. The Aemilii were Greek (Plut. Aem. 1; Fest. ep. 23) or Sabine (Plut. Num. 8) or Oscan (Fest. 130. 1).

[225] Cf. p. 31 above. For details, see Pol. Sci. Quart. xxii. 679 ff.

[226] That Caere was the first community to receive the civitas sine suffragio may justly be inferred from the expression “Caerite franchise,” which designates this kind of limited citizenship (cf. p. 62). The general fact stated in (6) is further confirmed by the law which granted the right of extending the pomerium to those magistrates only who had acquired new territory for Rome; Gell. xiii. 14. 3; Tacitus, Ann. xii. 23.

[227] Since the publication of the Staatsrecht, writers have made slight modifications or extensions of the conventional theory. Greenidge, in Poste, Gaii Institutiones, xix, suggests that the dual forms in Roman law may have as their basis a racial distinction between the patricians and the plebeians. A serious objection to this kind of reasoning is that if we are on the lookout for dualities, trinities, and the like, we shall find them in abundance everywhere. All sorts of theories as to the racial connections of the two social classes have been proposed. Zöller, Latium und Rom, 23 ff., supposes that the patricians were Sabine and the plebeians Latin. Ridgeway, Early Age of Greece, i. 257, holds that the plebeians were Ligurians, whereas Conway, in Riv. di Stor. ant. vii (1903). 422-4, prefers to consider them Volscians. These notions are equally worthless. Undoubtedly race is a potent factor in history; but Gumplowicz, Rassenkampf (1883), has killed the theory by overwork.

Among the writers who have rejected the conventional view are Soltau, Altröm. Volksversamml. (1880); Bernhöft, Röm. Königsz. (1882); Pelham, Outlines of Roman History (1893; reprint of his article on “Roman History,” in the Encycl. Brit.); Meyer, Gesch. d. Alt. ii (1893); Holzapfel, in Beitr. z. alt. Gesch. i (1902). 254.

[228] Meyer, Gesch. d. Alt. ii. 80; Featherman, Social History of the Races of Mankind, ii. 408; Hellwald, Culturgeschichte, i. 175; Barth, Philosophie der Geschichte, i. 382. It would be practicable by the citation of authorities to prove the existence of such distinctions in nearly every community, present or past, whose social condition is sufficiently known.

[229] Giddings, Principles of Sociology, 124; Tarde, Laws of Imitation, 233 f.; Fairbanks, Introduction to Sociology, 158; Grave, L’individu et la société, 23; Funck-Brentano, Civilisation et ses lois, 71 f.; Caspari, Urgeschichte der Menschheit, i. 125 f.; Hellwald, ibid. i. 175, 177; Ross, Social Control, 80.

[230] Giddings, ibid. 262; Ammon, Gesellschaftsordnung, 133 f.; Cherbuliez, Simples notions de l’ordre social à l’usage de tout le monde, 38 f.; Dechesne, Conception du droit, 36; Grave, ibid. 23 f.; Caspari, ibid. i. 133 f.; Harris, Civilization considered as a Science, 211; Lepelletier de la Sarthe, Système sociale, i. 329; Mismer, Principes sociologiques, 63 f.; Rossbach, Geschichte der Gesellschaft, i. 13 f.; Schurtz, Urgeschichte der Kultur, 385; Hittell, Mankind in Ancient Times, i. 228 f.; Maine, Early History of Institutions, 130; Seebohm, Tribal System in Wales, 139; Post, A. H., Anfänge des Staats- und Rechtslebens, 150 f.

[231] Giddings, ibid. 262; cf. Arnd, Die materiellen Grundlagen ... der europäischen Kultur, 444 f.; Frohschammer, Organisation und Kultur der mensch. Gesellschaft, 84 f.; Bastian, Rechtsverhältnisse bei verschiedenen Völkern der Erde, 20 f.; Spencer, Principles of Sociology, ii. 333, 335.

[232] Frazer, Early Hist. of the Kingship; Spencer, ibid. ii. 338 f.; cf. for the Malays, Skeat and Blagden, Pagan Races of the Malay Peninsula, 499.

[233] Cf. Rubino, Röm. Verf. 183; Spencer, ibid. ii. 334 f.; Seebohm, Tribal System in Wales, 72.

[234] Aristotle, Politics, 1294, a 21; Giddings, Principles of Sociology, 293 f.; Jenks, History of Politics, 30 f.; Grave, L’individu et la société, 25; Combes de Lestrade, Éléments de sociologie, 185; Schurtz, Urgeschichte der Kultur, 148, 385; Featherman, Social History of the Races of Mankind, see index, s. Classes; Hittell, Mankind in Ancient Times, i. 228; Maine, Early History of Institutions, 134; Ginnell, Brehon Laws, 60 f.; Farrand, Basis of American History, 114, 201; Bluntschli, Theory of the State, 149.

[235] Grave, ibid. 30 f.; Combes de Lestrade, ibid. 184 f.; Funck-Brentano, Civilisation et ses lois, 68 f.; Spencer, ibid. ii. 348 f.; Schurtz, ibid. 150 f.; Featherman, ibid. ii. 128, 197 f., 311; Letourneau, Sociology, 480 f.; Bastian, Rechtsverhältnisse, 8 f.

[236] Cf. Schurtz, ibid. 148; Farrand, ibid. 114, 129, 141. For the Malays, see Skeat and Blagden, ibid. 494 ff.

[237] Maine, ibid. 132.

[238] Maine, ibid.; Ginnell, Brehon Laws, 63 f., 93 f.

[239] Seebohm, Tribal System in Wales, 134 f.

[240] As in Wales; Seebohm, ibid. 139; cf. the Inca grandees, who all claimed descent from the founder of the monarchy; Letourneau, Sociology, 479.

[241] Tac. Germ. 13. 3: “Insignis nobilitas aut magna patrum merita principis dignationem etiam adulescentulis adsignant.” It is clear that the family of a youth who receives an office or dignity because of the merits of his ancestors is coming near to nobility.

[242] A certain man of illegitimate birth, hence of inferior social standing, through martial skill and daring becomes a leader of warriors, acquires wealth, marries the daughter of a notable, “waxes dread and honorable” among his countrymen, who elect him to a high military command by the side of their hereditary chief; the taint of his birth is forgotten; Od., xiv. 199; cf. Bernhöft, Röm. Königsz. 123.

[243] Livy viii. 39. 12; x. 38. 7: “Nobilissimum quemque genere factisque,” with reference to the Samnites; some were nobles by birth, others by prowess; cf. 46. 4: “Nobiles aliquot captivi clari suis patrumque factis ducti;” some of these captives were noble through their own prowess, others through that of their ancestors. The Samnite nobility was in the formative stage like that of the German nobility in the time of Tacitus. The Yakonan of California are in this condition; Farrand, Basis of American History, 129.