patrician

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patrician , member of the privileged class of ancient Rome. Two distinct classes appear to have come into being at the beginning of the republic. Only the patricians held public office, whether civil or religious. From the 4th cent. BC the plebeians struggled constantly for political equality until, by the 3d cent. BC, the only offices reserved to the patricians were the civil office of interrex and some priestly offices. The increasing number of plebs in office together with patricians gave rise to the nobiles, an aristocracy of ruling families of both classes. Caesar and Augustus promoted plebeians to the patrician class. External marks of a patrician were a distinctive tunic and a shoe adorned with an ivory crescent.

patrician a member of a noble family or class in ancient Rome. The rank was originally hereditary, but in Imperial Rome patricians could be appointed by the emperor. In the later Roman Empire and Byzantine Empire, patrician was an honorific title bestowed by the Emperor at Byzantium, introduced by Constantine I; it was also used for an officer, originally bearing this distinction, sent or appointed as representative of the Byzantine Emperor to administer the provinces of Italy and Africa.

In extended use, an aristocrat or nobleman, a member of a long-established wealthy family. Recorded from late Middle English, the word comes via Old French from Latin patricius ‘having a noble father’.

patrician A privileged landed aristocrat of early republican Rome. The patricians (or ‘fathers’) gathered after the expulsion of TARQUIN to guide the state. Supported by revered tradition they were hereditary members of the ROMAN SENATE. They monopolized all magistracies and priesthoods but during the ‘struggle of the Orders’ with the plebeians they were forced to share power with them - in 367 BC the consulship was open to plebeians. Thereafter a ‘plebeian nobility’ arose, which together with the patricians formed the ruling class. Their ranks were thinned and their influence waned in the late republic but the ancient names still carried prestige.

pa·tri·cian / pəˈtrishən/ • n. an aristocrat or nobleman. ∎  a member of a long-established wealthy family. ∎  a member of a noble family or class in ancient Rome. • adj. belonging to or characteristic of the aristocracy: a proud, patrician face. ∎  belonging to or characteristic of a long-established and wealthy family. ∎  belonging to the nobility of ancient Rome.

patrician Aristocratic class in the ancient Roman Republic, members of the Senate. In the early years of the Republic, the patricians controlled all aspects of government and society. Under the Empire, the division between patricians and plebeians disappeared.

patrician noble in ancient Rome or the later Roman Empire XV; nobleman, aristocrat XVII. — (O)F. patricien, f. L. patricius, sb. use of adj. ‘of a noble father’, f. pater, patr- FATHER, see -IAN.

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