Patricians

Patricians, members of landed families who were citizens of Rome. Originally patricians are said to have been Sabines who conquered a Ligurian people already established on the site of Rome; according to this theory the plebeians, who made up the other element of the free Roman populace, were the conquered Ligurians whose family organization was less highly developed than that of the Sabines. All political and religious offices were reserved for the patricians, and intermarriage with plebeians was forbidden. A long struggle between the two orders, beginning in the 6th century bc, ended in the attainment by the plebeians of political equality and the establishment of a new aristocracy of nobiles made up of ruling families of both classes. From 300 bc the old political distinctions between patricians and plebeians had no real meaning, except that patricians were ineligible for the tribunate or the plebeian council. From the early 4th century ad onwards, patricius became a personal rather than a hereditary title, and was conferred with high honours and privileges.