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Patricians and Plebeians at Rome

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2012

Extract

It has been widely held since the days of Aretino (1369-1444) and more scientifically since those of Niebuhr, that the Patricians and the Plebeians were in origin two different peoples or races. I propose to show, firstly, that the Plebeians were never a people or a race at all; secondly, that the differences to which attention has been drawn are differences within the Patrician body itself, the result of its development from at least three stocks. My grounds for the former view are largely negative—the inadequacy of the arguments adduced by Niebuhr and his supporters, down to and including Binder and Piganiol; for the latter, I think strong positive arguments may be found, some of which, well observed but ill interpreted, form the most respectable props of the view which I discard.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © H. J.Rose1922. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

page 106 note 1 Die Plebs. Leipzig 1909, p. 181 sqq.

page 106 note 2 Ibid. p. 209.

page 107 note 1 Essai sur les origines de Rome, Paris 1917Google Scholar; summary on p. 313 sqq.

page 107 note 2 Except Oberziner, Patriziato e plebe, in Studi di filologia, filosofia e storia, 1913, which is in part a reply to Binder's criticism of his earlier work on the subject.

page 107 note 3 The evidence is carefully reviewed by Binder, p. 1 sqq.

page 107 note 4 Tac, , Ann. xii, 2, 3Google Scholar.

page 108 note 1 Annales 84, Vahlen = Cic, . de diuin, i, 107Google Scholar.

page 109 note 1 Cic, . de off. iii, 66Google Scholar.

page 109 note 2 Binder's attempt to make out that it was once joined to the Quirinal by a ridge is more than doubtful. He deduces from the inscription on Trajan's column, ‘ad declarandum quantae altitudinis mons et locus tan … pibus sit egestus,’ that there was an actual mons there as high as the Column. But it is surely more natural to follow Ch. Bruston (Rev. des études anciennes, xxiv, 1922, p. 305Google Scholar) who supplies tan[tis ru]pibus, translating ‘pour déclarer que d'aussi grande hauteur est un mont, le lieu aussi a été tiré d'aussi grandes roches,’ i.e., Trajan's workmen had to clear away a perfect ‘mountain’ of rocks, but not a solid hill of any kind, for an ancient road ran through them. This seems much more likely than to suppose that the road in question was the Via Fornicata and was actually tunnelled through a rocky hill or ridge, as Binder does, p. 42 sqq.

page 110 note 1 De lingua Latina v, 158.

page 110 note 2 See Wissowa, Religion und Kultus der Römer, p. 198.

page 110 note 3 Wiss., op. cit. p. 145.

page 111 note 1 Binder, p. 226.

page 111 note 2 p. 322.

page 111 note 3 Cic, pro Sest. 19.

page 111 note 4 p. 151, Müller.

page 111 note 5 p. 144.

page 112 note 1 See Man 1920, no. 90 (p. 181).

page 113 note 1 iv, 1 sqq.

page 113 note 2 Plautus, Cist. 562; Theopompos ap. Athen. xii, 517 d.e.

page 113 note 3 Mother-Right in Anc. Italy, in Folk-Lore xxxi (1920), p. 93 sqq.

page 114 note 1 Servius (Dan.) on Aen. iv, 58; see Binder p. 356.

page 114 note 2 Piganiol, p. 156 sqq.

page 114 note 3 P. 539.

page 114 note 4 P. 351 sqq.; 329 sqq.

page 115 note 1 See Livy ii, 37, 8; Cic. pro Sest. 30 and Schol. Bob. ad loc.; notice that Cicero specifically mentions the Latini.

page 116 note 1 That it was not originally so I hope to prove later.

page 116 note 2 The Italians did not exactly ask for one of the consuls to be of their number, but their demands, if granted, would have produced that result at least, considering the relative numbers of Roman citizens and socii at the time; Φούλοις Φλάκκος ὐπατϵύων … ᾐρέθιζϵ τοὺς Ἰταλοὺς ἐπιθυμϵῖν τῆς ῾Ρωμαίων πολιτϵίας ὼς κοινωνοὺς τῆς ἡγϵμονίας ἀντὶ ὑΠηκύων ίσομίνους Appian, , Bell. Ciu. i, 34Google Scholar.

page 117 note 1 P. 95.

page 117 note 2 Gromatici, p. 140 Lachmann. The author, Siculus Flaccus, adds that the custom was apud antiques observata.

page 118 note 1 P. 317, sqq.

page 119 note 1 See Livy i, 8, 1; Dion. Hal. ii, 7, 8; Plutarch Rom. 13.

page 120 note 1 Quaest. Rom. 81; διὰ τί πϵριπόρφυρον ὁ δήμαρχος οὐ φορϵῖ, τῶν ἄλλων ἀρχόντων φορούντων; ἦ τὸ παράπαν οὐδ᾽ ἐστὶν ἄρχων; οὐδὲ γὰρ ῥαβδούχους ἔχουσιν οὐδ᾽ ἔπὶ δίφρου καθήμϵνοι χρηματἱζουσιν, οὐδ´ ἔτους ἀρχῇ καάπϵρ οἱ λοιποὶ πάντϵς ἄρχοντϵς ϵἰσίασιν, οὐδὲ πάυονται δικτάτορος αἱρϵθέντος … ὥσπϵρ οὐκ ὄντϵς ἅρχοντϵς ἀλλ᾽ ἑτέραν τινὰ τάξιν ἔχοντϵς.

page 120 note 2 x, 8, 2.

page 120 note 3 P. 159.

page 120 note 4 In Cicero, Topica, 29; gentiles sunt qui eodem nomine sunt … qui ab ingenuis oriundi sunt … quorum maiorum nemo seruitutem seruinit …qui capite non sunt diminuti.

page 120 note 5 gee Gaius, in Digest xxxviii, 10, 1Google Scholar.

page 121 note 1 We cannot be sure that the differentiating ending was originally a diminutive in either case.

page 121 note 2 Livy xxix, 19, 5.

page 121 note 3 Ortho-cousins are the children of two brothers or two sisters; cross-cousins, of a brother and a sister. The former word is the invention of Sir James Frazer.

page 121 note 4 See Modestinus in Digest, ibid. 4, 5 and 10.

page 122 note 1 See Frazer, , Totemism and Exogamy, vol. ii, pp. 129, 302Google Scholar.

page 122 note 2 That age-classes once existed among the Romans is reasonably likely from the fact that the vocabulary of such a classification (puer, adulescens, iuuenis, senex; puella, uirgo, mulier, anus) survives and retains on the whole fairly definite meanings; also from the ceremonial of the toga uirilis, and the centuries of iuniores and seniores.

page 123 note 1 For the origin of marriage of cross-cousins, probably from the common exchange of an own or clan-sister for a wife, see Frazer, , Folk-Lore in the O.T., vol. ii, p. 193Google Scholar sqq. Note that sorores are sobrinae differently viewed.

page 124 note 1 See Liv. x, 23,4.

page 124 note 2 See note at end of article.

page 124 note 3 Hence also the inability of a woman to hold or transmit property. She was property herself, and a chattel cannot be an owner.

page 124 note 4 See the story told of Cato the Elder, Plut. Cat. Mai. 17, 7; ἄλλον δὲ βουλῆς ἐξίβαλϵν … Μανίλλιον, ὅτι τὴν αὑτοῦ γυναῖκα μϵθ᾿ ἡμέραν ὁρώσης τῆς θυγατρὸς κατϵφίλησϵν (καταφιλϵῖν, in Plutarch and Hellenistic writers generally, means simply osculari, osculo excipere, not ‘embrace’ as Perrin renders it).

page 125 note 1 See Binder pp. 144 sqq., 162, Piganiol pp. 263 sqq. (assemblies); Binder p. 375 sqq., Piganiol p. 262 (senate). The relevant passages are cited by these authors.

page 126 note 1 See Peet, op. cit. p. 109.

page 127 note 1 J.R.S. iii, (1913), p. 237Google Scholar.

page 127 note 2 Apud Aug. C.D. iv, 31.

page 127 note 3 See Year's Work, 1922-1923, for a bronze age settlement on Monte Mario.

page 127 note 4 See for instance Boni in Not. degli Scav., 1906, p. 30, the fibula from one of the cremation-graves. Its shape, while not very elaborate, is not primitive, and shows no little skill.

page 127 note 5 De ling. Lat. v, 143.

page 127 note 6 Serv. on Aen. i, 448. For the flamen Dialis in general see Wissowa, op. cit. p. 504 sqq., and the references there given.

page 128 note 1 After trying every conceivable etymology, modern opinion seems to be returning to the classical Latin view that the word means those who were there ab origine; so Binder, p. 294 sqq. The Siculi may have been the invaders, as Siculan is a Wiro speech.

page 129 note 1 It was normally rectangular, although Prof. Frothingham, A. L. (A.J.A. xviii, 302Google Scholar ff.) makes out a strong case for its not always having that shape.

page 129 note 2 Varr. ap. Non. 223 M.

page 130 note 1 Les fonctions mentales, p. 204 sqq.

page 130 note 2 Sibyll. Blätter p. 40 sqq. I doubt if the nine torches be really Roman.

page 131 note 1 Add the fourfold repetition of a prayer, Ovid, . Fast. iv, 778Google Scholar.