Origin
According to Livy, the first 100 men appointed as senators by Romulus were referred to as "fathers" (patres), and the descendants of those men became the Patrician class. The patricians were distinct from the plebeians because they had wider political influence, at least in the times of the Republic. As the middle and late Republic saw this influence gradually stripped, non-patricians (i.e. plebeians) were granted equal rights on a range of areas, and quotas of officials, including one of the two consulships, were exclusively reserved for plebeians.
Read more about this topic: Patrician (ancient Rome)
Famous quotes containing the word origin:
“In the woods in a winter afternoon one will see as readily the origin of the stained glass window, with which Gothic cathedrals are adorned, in the colors of the western sky seen through the bare and crossing branches of the forest.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“There are certain books in the world which every searcher for truth must know: the Bible, the Critique of Pure Reason, the Origin of Species, and Karl Marx’s Capital.”
—W.E.B. (William Edward Burghardt)
“Someone had literally run to earth
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The origin of all the family there.
Thence they were sprung, so numerous a tribe
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Of here and there a tent in grove and orchard.”
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