What was the importance of the patrician class in the Roman Empire?
Upvote:2
Good question. I don't claim to know the full answer, but this quote from Mary Beard's SPQR might shed some light.
IN 212 CE the emperor Caracalla decreed that all the free inhabitants of the Roman Empire, wherever they lived, from Scotland to Syria, were Roman citizens. It was a revolutionary decision, which removed at a stroke the legal difference between the rulers and the ruled, and the culmination of a process that had been going on for almost a millennium. More than 30 million provincials became legally Roman overnight.
...
Citizenship, once granted to all, became irrelevant. Over the third century CE, it was the distinction between the honestiores (literally ‘the more honourable’, the rich elite, including veteran soldiers) and the humiliores (literally ‘the lower sort’) that came to matter and to divide Romans again into two groups, with unequal rights formally written into Roman law. It was, for example, only honestiores who were exempted, as all citizens once had been, from particularly cruel or degrading punishments, such as crucifixion or flogging. The ‘lower sort’ of citizens found themselves liable to the kind of penalties that had previously been reserved for slaves and non-citizens. The new boundary between insiders and outsiders followed the line of wealth, class and status.
It sounds like the patrician class persisted by another name. This is about 200 years after Augustus though, so there's a big gap to filled in by another repondent.
More post
- 📝 Why weren't the U.S. aircraft carriers in Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941?
- 📝 What is the earliest written date?
- 📝 What caused the imposition of strict celibacy for Catholic priests during the 11th century?
- 📝 How do modern historians evaluate Sherman's "Total War"?
- 📝 What was the longest a World War II submarine stayed at sea without being resupplied at a port?
- 📝 Did the USSR pledge support to Czechoslovakia before the Munich Agreement?
- 📝 Which languages would be most useful in Europe at the end of the 19th century?
- 📝 Was the use of captured tanks an effective strategy for Germany?
- 📝 Who was the first Renaissance cartographer to include rich content in their maps that went beyond spatial points, borders, and location names?
- 📝 Did any British police force rank "Senior Superintendent"?
- 📝 What are some settlements in Greece circa 2000 BCE - 1900 BCE?
- 📝 Why was Italy unified under the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia and not under a stronger state?
- 📝 What and who killed Richard the Lionheart and what happened to him?
- 📝 What were the military justifications for the bombing of Dresden?
- 📝 What were shoe soles made from in previous ages?
- 📝 Zoroastrianism and Hinduism
- 📝 Soviet reaction to Battle of the Denmark Strait
- 📝 How did the Soviets decide what to annex in WW2?
- 📝 What was the status of Shia Muslims in the Ottoman empire?
- 📝 Why didn't the British test the effects of shells on trench warfare defenses?
- 📝 Did the Vikings use horses in battle?
- 📝 How many people died of hunger and malnutrition in the post WWII 20th century?
- 📝 Did the slave trade from Africa to the Middle East decline during the 20th century?
- 📝 Is there a place in Europe that has never been Christian?
- 📝 Building of the pyramids
- 📝 Did the Incas think Spanish helmets were cooking pots?
- 📝 Are there any old paintings (medieval period onwards) that actually depict the female genitalia rather than just leaving the pubic region empty?
- 📝 How did Porfirio Diaz leave Mexico for Europe?
- 📝 Did the Romans melt down looted golden objects or did they keep them intact?
- 📝 Did people have better nutrition before agriculture?
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- 📝 What was the importance of the patrician class in the Roman Empire?
- 📝 What was the northernmost region/city in the Roman Empire that spoke Greek as the native language?
- 📝 What was the cost of buying Silk in the Roman Empire
- 📝 What was the population of the Roman Empire around 210 AD?
- 📝 What was the biggest region in the Holy Roman Empire that was never Protestant, if any?
- 📝 Why was the Roman Empire considered an empire rather than a kingdom (again)?
- 📝 What was the average height of Roman men and women?
- 📝 What role did the Eastern Roman Empire play in the fall of the Western Roman Empire?
- 📝 Was the Roman Empire based on a 'plunder economy'?
- 📝 What was the life expectancy of an ancient Roman child and adult?
- 📝 What was the reason for the Ottoman empire to adopt the crescent moon as its flag/coat of arms?
- 📝 What Roman Republican legal structures lasted into the Empire and which ones didn't?
- 📝 What were the insignia of the Western Roman Empire and what happened to them?
- 📝 What kinds of goods were commonly smuggled in the Roman Empire up to the end of the 3rd century AD?
- 📝 What class / type of ship was the "Dragon" from Rotterdam c. 1732?
- 📝 Why was the government expenditures of the Roman Empire very low compared to modern governments?
- 📝 What was the status of specialized workers during the Roman times?
- 📝 What would slaves in the Roman Empire call their masters?
- 📝 What was the largest empire in terms of time of communication between its two ends?
- 📝 Was there ever support for any persons outside of the empire to be elected Holy Roman Emperor?
- 📝 What Was the Political Condition of the Region that Encompasses the Modern Russian State in the time of the Roman empire?
- 📝 What was the strategic importance of Moscow to the Soviet Union in Dec 1941?
- 📝 What was the strategic importance of Judea?
- 📝 What was the ethnic identity of first class sergeant Patrick Joseph Cleary?
- 📝 What was the first major technological advancement that occurred after the fall of the Roman Empire?
- 📝 What was the value of a thousand talents in Roman Palestine about AD 33?
- 📝 What was the conspiratorial name of Roman Stanislaw Dmowski?
- 📝 What was the social class of priests' children in Imperial Russia?
- 📝 Was the Holy Roman Empire a financial union as well as a defensive union?
- 📝 What was the population of the Parthian Empire around (AD) 1 CE?