PĂTRĬA POTESTAS. Potestas signifies generally a power or faculty of
any kind by which we do anything. “Potestas,” says Paulus, a Roman
jurist, “has several significations: when applied to magistrates,
it is Imperium; in the case of children, it is the patria potestas;
in the case of slaves, it is Dominium.” According to Paulus then,
potestas, as applied to magistrates, is equivalent to imperium.
Thus we find potestas associated with the adjectives praetoria,
consularis. But potestas is applied to magistrates who had not the
imperium, as for instance to quaestors and tribuni plebis; and
potestas and imperium are often opposed in Cicero. [IMPERIUM.] Thus
it seems that this word potestas, like many other Roman terms,
had both a wider signification and a narrower one. In its wider
signification it might mean all the power that was delegated to any
person by the state, whatever might be the extent of that power.
In its narrower significations, it was on the one hand equivalent
to imperium; and on the other, it expressed the power of those
functionaries who had not the imperium. Sometimes it was used to
express a magistratus, as a person; and hence in the Italian language
the word podestà signifies a magistrate. Potestas is also one of
the words by which is expressed the power that one private person
has over another, the other two being manus and mancipium. The
potestas is either dominica, that is, ownership as exhibited in the
relation of master and slave [SERVUS]; or patria as exhibited in the
relation of father and child. The mancipium was framed after the
analogy of the potestas dominica. [MANCIPIUM.] Patria potestas then
signifies the power which a Roman father had over the persons of his
children, grandchildren, and other descendants (_filii-familias_,
_filiae-familias_), and generally all the rights which he had by
virtue of his paternity. The foundation of the patria potestas was
a legal marriage, and the birth of a child gave it full effect.
[MATRIMONIUM.] It does not seem that the patria potestas was ever
viewed among the Romans as absolutely equivalent to the dominica
potestas, or as involving ownership of the child; and yet the
original notion of the patria came very near to that of the dominica
potestas. Originally the father had the power of life and death over
his son as a member of his familia; and he could sell him, and so
bring him into the mancipii causa. He could also give his daughter in
marriage, or give a wife to his son, divorce his child, give him in
adoption, and emancipate him at his pleasure.
PATRĬCĬI. This word is evidently a derivative from _pater_, which
frequently occurs in the Roman writers as equivalent to senator.
_Patricii_ therefore signifies those who belonged to the _patres_,
but it is a mistake to suppose that the patricii were only the
offspring of the patres in the sense of senators. On the contrary,
the patricians were, in the early history of Rome, the whole body
of Roman citizens, the _populus Romanus_, and there were no real
citizens besides them. The other parts of the Roman population,
namely clients and slaves, did not belong to the populus Romanus,
and were not burghers or patricians. The senators or patres (in
the narrower sense of the word) were a select body of the populus
or patricians, which acted as their representatives. The burghers
or patricians consisted originally of three distinct tribes, which
afterwards became united into the sovereign populus. These tribes had
founded settlements upon several of the hills which were subsequently
included within the precincts of the city of Rome. Their names were
Ramnes, Tities, and Luceres, or Ramnenses, Titienses, and Lucerenses.
Each of these tribes consisted of ten curiae, and each curia of ten
gentes, and of the same number of decuries, which were established
for representative and military purposes. [SENATUS.] The first
tribe, or the Ramnes, were a Latin colony on the Palatine hill,
said to have been founded by Romulus. As long as it stood alone, it
contained only one hundred gentes, and had a senate of one hundred
members. When the Tities, or Sabine settlers on the Quirinal and
Viminal hills, under king Tatius, became united with the Ramnes,
the number of gentes, as well as that of senators, was increased
to 200. These two tribes after their union continued probably for
a considerable time to be the patricians of Rome, until the third
tribe, the Luceres, which chiefly consisted of Etruscans, who had
settled on the Caelian hill, also became united with the other two as
a third tribe. The amalgamation of these three tribes did not take
place at once: the union between Latins and Sabines is ascribed to
the reign of Romulus, though it does not appear to have been quite
perfect, since the Latins on some occasions claimed a superiority
over the Sabines. The Luceres existed for a long time as a separate
tribe without enjoying the same rights as the two other tribes, until
Tarquinius Priscus, himself an Etruscan, caused them to be placed on
a footing of equality with the others. For this reason he is said to
have increased the number of senators to 300. The Luceres, however,
are, notwithstanding this equalisation, sometimes distinguished
from the other tribes by the name _patres_ or _patricii minorum
gentium_. During the time of the republic, distinguished strangers
and wealthy plebeians were occasionally made Roman patricians; for
instance, Appius Claudius and his gens, and Domitius Ahenobarbus.
When the plebeians became a distinct class of citizens [PLEBES], the
patricians, of course, ceased to be the only class of citizens, but
they still retained the exclusive possession of all the power in the
state. All civil and religious offices were in their possession, and
they continued as before to be the populus, the nation now consisting
of the populus and the plebes. In their relation to the plebeians
or the commonalty, the patricians were a real aristocracy of birth.
A person born of a patrician family was and remained a patrician,
whether he was rich or poor, whether he was a member of the senate,
or an eques, or held any of the great offices of the state, or not:
there was no power that could make a patrician a plebeian. As regards
the census, he might indeed not belong to the wealthy classes, but
his rank remained the same. The only way in which a patrician might
become a plebeian was when of his own accord he left his gens and
curia, gave up the sacra, &c. A plebeian, on the other hand, or even
a stranger, might be made a patrician by a lex curiata. But this
appears to have been done very seldom; and the consequence was, that
in the course of a few centuries the number of patrician families
became so rapidly diminished, that towards the close of the republic
there were not more than fifty such families. Although the patricians
throughout this whole period had the character of an aristocracy of
birth, yet their political rights were not the same at all times.
During the first centuries of the republic there was an almost
uninterrupted struggle between patricians and plebeians, in which
the former exerted every means to retain their exclusive rights, but
which ended in the establishment of the political equality of the
two orders. [PLEBES.] Only a few insignificant priestly offices, and
the performance of certain ancient religious rites and ceremonies,
remained the exclusive privilege of the patricians; of which they
were the prouder, as in former days their religious power and
significance were the basis of their political superiority. At the
time when the struggle between patricians and plebeians ceased, a new
kind of aristocracy began to arise at Rome, which was partly based
upon wealth, and partly upon the great offices of the republic, and
the term nobiles was given to all persons whose ancestors had held
any of the curule offices. (Compare NOBILES.) This aristocracy of
nobiles threw the old patricians as a body still more into the shade,
though both classes of aristocrats united as far as was possible to
monopolise all the great offices of the state. In their dress and
appearance the patricians were scarcely distinguished from the rest
of the citizens, unless they were senators, curule magistrates, or
equites, in which case they wore like others the ensigns peculiar
to these classes. The only thing by which they seem to have been
distinguished in their appearance from other citizens was a peculiar
kind of shoe, which covered the whole foot and part of the leg,
though it was not as high as the shoes of senators and curule
magistrates. These shoes were fastened with four strings (_corrigiae_
or _lora patricia_) and adorned with a lunula on the top.
PĂTRĪMI ET MĀTRĪMI were children born of parents, who had been
married by the religious ceremony called confarreatio: they are
almost always mentioned in connection with religious rites and
ceremonies.
PĂTRŎNŎMI (πατρονόμοι), magistrates at Sparta, who exercised, as it
were, a paternal power over the whole state. They did not exist till
a late period, and they succeeded to the powers which the ephori
formerly possessed.
PĂTRŌNUS. The act of manumission created a new relation between
the manumissor and the slave, which was analogous to that between
father and son. The manumissor became with respect to the manumitted
person his patronus, and the manumitted person became the libertus
of the manumissor. The word patronus (from pater) indicates the
nature of the relation. If the manumissor was a woman, she became
patrona. The libertus adopted the gentile name of the manumissor.
Cicero’s freedman Tiro was called M. Tullius Tiro. The libertus owed
respect and gratitude to his patron, and in ancient times the patron
might punish him in a summary way for neglecting those duties. This
obligation extended to the children of the libertus, and the duty was
due to the children of the patron. It was the duty of the patron to
support his freedman in case of necessity, and if he did not, he lost
his patronal rights; the consequence was the same if he brought a
capital charge against him. The most important of the patronal rights
related to the property of liberti, as in certain cases the patronus
had a right to the whole or a part of the property of a libertus.
PAUPĔRĬES, the legal term for mischief done by an animal
(_quadrupes_) contrary to the nature of the animal, as if a man’s ox
gored another man. In such cases the law of the Twelve Tables gave
the injured person an action against the owner of the animal for the
amount of the damage sustained. The owner was bound either to pay the
full amount of damages or to give up the animal to the injured person
(_noxae dare_).