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Conscript Fathers (patres conscripti) are the senator members of the ancient Roman Senate.[1][2][3][4]
Contents |
[edit] Early history
Established by the early kings of Rome, possibly going back to legendary Romulus and Remus in the 8th century BCE, the Romans instituted a senate consisting of 100 elder patricians called patres (fathers).[4][5][6] They are known as the first original Roman senators ("old men").[4] These members initiated and started by Romulus and Remus were referred to as patres majorum gentium.[7]
Livy writes that Romulus and Remus originally created 100 senators.[4] This was because that number was sufficient or because there were only 100 available.[4] He further explains that these original senators were called fathers.[4] This was for respect of the heads of family where these members were obtained. The Latin title patres originally meant heads of families.[4] Their descendants were called patricians.[4] In these very early times the patrician senate selected only members from heads of families.[6] When patricians were admitted into the senate the members of the senate were all called patres.[8] Plutarch points out that they were gentlemen who could show their pedigree proudly. The later members who were selected from the commonalty were called "Patres Conscripti."[9]
Romulus and Remus wanted the senators (patres) to advise them, especially in the case of alliances and treaties.[10] The Sabines later joined the Roman Kingdom and then another 100 members were added by Lucius Tarquinius Priscus.[11][12] Cassius Dio in his Book II of "Roman History" provides a motive: Tarquin enlisted into the Senate Romans who would support his right to be king.[13] The complete body was then referred to as Patres Minrum Gentium .[14]
According to Livy in the time of Lucius Tarquinius Superbus he established his own personal senate. Tarquinius would only take advice from his friends and not the original senate members (patres).[15] Tarquinius even had ordered several senators assassinated that he didn't like. Later when he was banished in 510 BCE several of his remaining "loyal" senate members (friends) followed him.[16]
[edit] Roman Republic
Once the Roman Republic had been established then the plebeians were allowed to be admitted to the Roman Senate around 509 BCE.[17] They were mostly wealthy non-patricians (equites). The vacancies of Tarquinius were then replaced by Lucius Junius Brutus whom brought the number up to 300 members.[6][18][19] The new members that were enrolled by Brutus then in the senatorial register were called conscripti and replaced by equestrian noblemen, not patricians.[3][6][20] When these certain new senators were first enrolled with the "fathers" by the censors the word "conscript" came into use because they compelled and drafted these new members into service (conscripted).[21][22][23] They were written or enrolled together with the original fathers and thus came about the tradition of summoning to the senate both patres and conscripti.[24][25] The original "old men" senators were called patres and the later ones conscripti and both were written upon the same list.[26][27][28][29]
Livy writes that Brutus filled the number of 300 by electing the principal men of equestrian rank to fill the places. From this Livy records that the Senate derived the custom of summoning into the senate both the patres and those who were conscripti. The "conscript fathers" were called the new senate, novus senatus. In Livy's words the old senators only were called patres. Livy shows the new members were distinguished from the old senators by the name conscripti, being the new members written or enrolled together with the original members.[30]
The complete body was called patres et conscripti and later all were referred to as patres conscripti, "Conscript Fathers."[2][6][31][32] The old senate of patricians (patres) transitioned into a senate of patres et conscripti ("fathers and conscripted men"). The conscript fathers was the collective name of members of the Roman Senate then in later times.[31] They were addressed as such, fathers as the senior members and conscripti ("conscripted men") as those enrolled later.
Patres Conscripti (Conscript Fathers) literally means "fathers enrolled" as originally referring to two distinct groups of senators: patres and conscripti.[33] They were the patrician senators (patres) and the non-patrician (constricti) senators that entered at the start of the Roman Republic. In this case conscripti is not an adjective qualifying patres. It is a concept that directly opposes patres. This is in the expression qui patres, qui conscripti.[34][35] The conscripti were plebeians registered with the patres on the same roll of the Roman Senate - therefore con-scripti.[33] The conscripti were second-class senators.[33]
The patricians were of a privileged clan and enjoyed certain privileges and had certain distinctions as opposed to the plebeians.[33][36] For example, these new plebeian senators could not vote on an auctoritas patrum ("authority of the fathers" or "authority of the patrician senators") nor be elected interrex.[37] The privilileged patricians (patres) also had special rights outside the Roman Senate as opposed to the non-patres, the conscripti.[33] They had access to the magistracies and priesthoods.[33] They were the only ones allowed to elect an interrex.[33] The patres were the only ones that could give their assent (auctoritas patrum) to the resolutions of the comitia.[33]
The general practice of the Republic was to select members that were ex-magistrates.[8] The leading senator heading everything was known as the princeps senatus (leader of the senate). Senators were not paid, however most were very wealthy men in their own right. Membership of the senate tended to be hereditary. Roman senators prepared legislative proposals to be brought before the people. The resolutions were called decreta or senatus consulta.[8]
[edit] Later history
In the reign of Gaius Marius and Lucius Cornelius Sulla the two words of "conscript" and "fathers" were run together to form Conscript Fathers.[21] This number of 300 members of the senate established by Brutus stayed about the same until the time of Lucius Cornelius Sulla, whom increased it then himself to some number of at least 400.[38] In the time of Julius Caesar the number had increased to over 900.[39] The number was later reduced to somewhere between 300 and 600 by Augustus.[40][41] Membership in the Roman Senate was done by the Roman censors and it was for life. They would only remove members for acts of immorality. The Roman senators would advise the censors and since they served for life by the the end of the Roman Republic they became independent of the censors.[8] The number of conscript fathers later in the time of the Roman Republic increased to about two thousand members.[8] Many of these were provincials, the most important being landowners of large parcels of land.[8] The Conscript Fathers' power ultimately faded around 200 CE and continued to decline to around 500 CE. Their influence disappeared from history records altogether at about the beginning of the Byzantine Senate.[8]
[edit] Ancient references
Titus Livius in his History of Rome, Volume III, records many speeches by elders to the Roman Senators referred to as "Conscript Fathers."[42][43][44][45][46]
Claudius (reigned 41 C.E. to 54 C.E.) in a speech, as recorded by Tacitus and on an inscription, speaks to the "Conscript Fathers" of the Roman Republic.[47]
Sextus Pompeius Festus agrees with this concept when he says of those that are named conscript are the ones that passed from the order of Roman knights into that of senators.[35]
Plutarch in his Life of Romulus writes that the original senator members were first labeled patres. He goes on to say that when other members were added to these original ones they all were called patres conscript then.[48][49]
Dionysius of Halicarnassus gives the same name of patres conscripti to the first senators created by Romulus. [50] However this form, qui patres, quique conscripti essent, which was used when the senate was called together, shows the mistake of the Greek historians. [51] When the Latin writers used patres conscrpti to express the senate in general the words are to be used by a conjunction, thus patres et conscripti, meaning the original fathers and those that have been added to them.[35][50][51]
[edit] Primary sources
- Livy, Roman History (Ab Urbe Condita)
[edit] Secondary sources
- Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)
- Brewer, E. Cobham; Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1898).
- McCullough, Colleen; The Grass Crown HarperCollins (1992), ISBN 038071082X
- Wood, Reverend James, The Nuttall Encyclopædia (1907) - a work now in public domain.
- Abbott, Frank Frost (1901). A History and Description of Roman Political Institutions. Elibron Classics, ISBN 0-543-92749-0.
- Hooke, Nathaniel; The Roman History, from the Building of Rome to the Ruin of the Commonwealth, F. Rivington (Rome). Original in New York Public Library
[edit] Bibliography
- Talbert, R. J. A., The Senate of Imperial Rome Princeton University Press (1984).
- Gelzer, Matthias, The Roman Nobility, Barnes & Noble (1969), ASIN B0006BX2G2
[edit] Footnotes
- ^ Latin and Greek phrases
- ^ a b Political Philosophy By Henry Brougham, page 130
- ^ a b The Works of Horace, with English Notes By Horace, A. J. Macleane, Reginald Heber Chase, page 573
- ^ a b c d e f g h Livy, Ab Urbe Condita, Book 1, first passage. [Romulus] created one hundred senators, either because that number was sufficient, or because there were only one hundred who could be so elected. Anyhow they were called fathers, by way of respect, and their descendants patricians.
- ^ Brewer, "Conscript Fathers"
- ^ a b c d e The Latin Library definitions
- ^ Tacit. Annal. xi.25
- ^ a b c d e f g Britannica Concise Encyclopedia (2007): "Roman Senate"
- ^ Plutarch's Morals By Plutarch Translated by various authors, p. 236. Published 1870 by Little, Brown, and company. Original from Harvard University, v.2
- ^ Livy, Ab Urbe Condita, Book 1, second passage. So then, by the advice of the senators, Romulus sent around ambassadors to the neighboring states, to solicit an alliance and the right of intermarriage for his new subjects....
- ^ Brewer, "Conscript Fathers"
- ^ Livy, Book 1, fifth passage.The same spirit of ambition which had prompted Tarquin, in other respects an excellent man, to aspire to the crown, attended him also on the throne. And being no less mindful of strengthening his own power, than of increasing the commonwealth, he elected a hundred new members into the senate, who from that time were called minorum gentium, a party who stanchly supported the king, by whose favour they had been admitted into the senate.
- ^ Roman History, II: Fragments of Books 12-35 and of Uncertain Reference, 1914.
- ^ Brewer, "Conscript Fathers"
- ^ Livy, Book 1, passage 6. For Lucius Tarquinius Superbus was the first of the kings who violated the custom derived from his predecessors of consulting the senate on all matters, and administered the business of the state by taking counsel with his friends alone. War, peace, treaties, alliances, all these he contracted and dissolved with whomsoever he pleased, without the sanction of the people and senate, entirely on his own responsibility.
- ^ Brewer, "Conscript Fathers"
- ^ University of Phoenix - Lucius Tarquinius Superbus
- ^ Brewer, "Conscript Fathers"
- ^ Livy, Book 1, passage 7.Brutus, with the consent of his colleague, was first attended by the fasces, he who proved himself afterward as keen in protecting liberty as he had previously shown himself in asserting it. First of all he bound over the people, jealous of their newly-acquired liberty, by an oath that they would suffer no one to be king in Rome, for fear that later they might be influenced by the importunities or bribes of the royal house. Next, that a full house might give additional strength to the senate, he filled up the number of senators, which had been diminished by the assassinations of Tarquinius, to the full number of three hundred, by electing the principal men of equestrian rank to fill their places: from this is said to have been derived the custom of summoning into the senate both the patres and those who were conscripti. They called those who were elected, conscripti, enrolled, that is, as a new senate. It is surprising how much that contributed to the harmony of the state, and toward uniting the patricians and commons in friendship.
- ^ Brewer, "Conscript Fathers"
- ^ a b McCullough, p. 1005
- ^ Roman Empire history - Roman Senate.The initial 100 senators or advisory council, traditionally instituted by the mythical Romulus, were composed of heads of leading families, the patricians (Patres=Fathers). The later drafted Plebeian senators were called Conscripti (Conscripted men), as they had no choice but to take a senate seat. The eventual nomenclature to describe Senators, Patres et Conscripti (Conscript Fathers), soon left out any distinction between Patrician and Plebeian and came to be an all encompassing term.
- ^ How did 2nd Century BC Romans become senators?
- ^ Livy ii. 1, ita appellabant in novum senatum lectos
- ^ Brewer, "Conscript Fathers"
- ^ Hooke, p. 172
- ^ Hooke, p. 231
- ^ Hooke, p. 389
- ^ Dictionary of Dates, and Universal Reference, Relating to All Ages (1851) By Joseph Haydn, p. 161
- ^ Livy, book 2
- ^ a b Roman antiquities: or, An account of the manners and customs of the Romans By Alexander Adam, page 3
- ^ Brewer, "Conscript Fathers"
- ^ a b c d e f g h Raaflaub, Kurt A.,Social Struggles in Archaic Rome: New Perspectives on the Conflict of the Orders, p. 173, Blackwell Publishing (2005), ISBN 1405100613.
- ^ Livy, II.I.II
- ^ a b c Festus, 304L
- ^ Livy, Book 1
- ^ Abbott, 26
- ^ Cic. ad Attic i. 14
- ^ Dio. xliii. 47
- ^ Suet. Aug.35
- ^ Dio liv. 14
- ^ History of Rome, Vol III by Titus Livius (Part 2 out of 11)
- ^ History of Rome, Vol III by Titus Livius (Part 3 out of 11)
- ^ History of Rome, Vol III by Titus Livius (Part 4 out of 11)
- ^ History of Rome, Vol III by Titus Livius (Part 5 out of 11)
- ^ History of Rome, Vol III by Titus Livius (Part 6 out of 11)
- ^ Ancient History Sourcebook: Claudius (b. 10 BCE, r. 41 CE - d.54 CE): A Discourse in the Senate, c. 48 CE
- ^ Romulus, esteeming it the duty of the chiefest and wealthiest men, with a fatherly care and concern to look after the meaner, and also encouraging the commonalty not to dread or be aggrieved at the honors of their superiors, but to love and respect them, and to think and call them their fathers, might from hence give them the name of patricians. For at this very time all foreigners give senators the style of lords; but the Romans, making use of a more honorable and less invidious name, call them Patres Conscripti; at first indeed simply Patres, but afterwards, more being added, Patres Conscripti. By this more imposing title he distinguished the senate from the populace; and in other ways also separated the nobles and the commons, -- calling them patrons, and these their clients, -- by which means he created wonderful love and amity between them, productive of great justice in their dealings.
- ^ Romulus By Plutarch written in 75 C.E. (legendary, lived legendary, 8th century B.C.E.), translated by John Dryden. For at this very time all foreigners give senators the style of lords; but the Romans, making use of a more honourable and less invidious name, call them Patres Conscripti; at first, indeed, simply Patres, but afterwards, more being added, Patres Conscripti.
- ^ a b The Cambridge Ancient History, p. 181
- ^ a b The Cambridge Ancient History, p. 102
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