Conscript Fathers

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Conscript Fathers - senators of ancient Rome
Conscript Fathers - senators of ancient Rome
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Conscript Fathers in Latin is patres conscripti.[1][2][3] It is the members of the ancient Roman Senate.[2][3][4]

Established by the early kings of Rome, possibly going back to Romulus in the 8th century BCE, the Romans instituted a senate consisting of 100 elder patricians called patres (fathers).[1][5][6] They are known as the first original Roman senators.[1] These initiated by Romulus were referred to as patres majorum gentium.[7] Membership in the Roman Senate was for life. Roman censors would only remove them for immorality.

Romulus wanted the senators to advise him, especially in the case of alliances and treaties.[8] The Sabines later joined the Roman Kingdom and then another 100 members were added by Lucius Tarquinius Priscus.[9][10] 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.[11]

According to Livy Tarquinius would only take advice from his friends and not the original senate members.[12] Tarquinius even had ordered several senators assassinated. Later when he was banished in 510 BCE several of his remaining "loyal" senate members followed him.[13] The vacancies were then replaced by Lucius Junius Brutus.[6][14] The new members that were enrolled by Brutus then in the senatorial register were called conscripti and replaced by equestrian noblemen, not patricians.[4][6][15][16] 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).[17] 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. [18][19] The old senators were called patres and the later ones conscripti and both were written upon the same list.[20][21][22]

Once the Roman Republic had been established then the plebeians were allowed to be admitted to the Roman Senate in the later part of the fifth century BCE. Lucius Tarquinius Superbus then added 100 more members called Patres Minrum Gentium, mostly his own friends that were wealthy non-patricians(equites).[23][24] This made it then a total of around 300 members for the Roman Senate. This number stayed about the same until the time of Lucius Cornelius Sulla, whom increased it then himself to some number of at least 400.[25] In the time of Julius Caesar the number had increased to 900 - 1000.[26] The number was later reduced to about 600 by Augustus.[27][28]

The complete body was called ''patres et conscripti and later all were referred to as patres conscripti, "Conscript Fathers."[3][6][29][30] 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.[29] They were addressed as such, fathers as the senior members and conscripti (conscripted men) as those enrolled later. Patres Conscripti literally means "fathers enrolled" as originally referring to two distinct groups. They were the patrician senators and the non-patricians that entered at the start of the Roman Republic.[31][32] In the reign of Gaius Marius and Lucius Cornelius Sulla the two words of "conscript" and "fathers" were run together to form Conscript Fathers.[33]

Livy writes that Romulus originally created 100 senators.[1] This was because that number was sufficient or because there were only 100 that could be elected.[1] He further explains that these original senators were called fathers.[1] This was because of respect.[1] Their descendants were called patricians.[1] The title patres originally came from heads of families. In early times the patrician senate selected members from these heads of families.[6] When later, plebeians were admitted into the senate, the members of the senate were all called patres. The patricians enjoyed certain privileges and had certain distinctions as opposed to the plebeians.[34] 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.[35]

Livy writes that Tarquinius 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.[36]

Dionys Hal gives the same name of patres conscripti to the first senators created by Romulus. [37] However this form, qui patres, quique conscripti essent, which was used when the senate was called together, shows the mistake of the Greek historians.[37] 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.[37] 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.

Plutarch in his Life of Romulus writes that the original senator members were first labeled patres. He goes on to say then that when other members were added to these original ones they ALL were called patres conscript then.[38] This does not say, however, this format was exactly followed by Titus Tatius the Sabine king of Cures, Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, or Lucius Junius Brutus.

[edit] Sources

  • Livy, Roman History (Ab Urbe Condita)
  • 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] Footnotes

  1. ^ 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.
  2. ^ a b Latin and Greek phrases
  3. ^ a b c Political Philosophy By Henry Brougham, page 130
  4. ^ a b The Works of Horace, with English Notes By Horace, A. J. Macleane, Reginald Heber Chase, page 573
  5. ^ Brewer, "Conscript Fathers"
  6. ^ a b c d e The Latin Library definitions
  7. ^ Tacit. Annal. xi.25
  8. ^ 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....
  9. ^ Brewer, "Conscript Fathers"
  10. ^ 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.
  11. ^ Roman History, II: Fragments of Books 12-35 and of Uncertain Reference, 1914.
  12. ^ Livy, Book 1, passage 6. For [Tarquin the proud] 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.
  13. ^ Brewer, "Conscript Fathers"
  14. ^ Brewer, "Conscript Fathers"
  15. ^ 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.
  16. ^ Brewer, "Conscript Fathers"
  17. ^ McCullough, p. 1005
  18. ^ Livy ii. 1, ita appellabant in novum senatum lectos
  19. ^ Brewer, "Conscript Fathers"
  20. ^ Hooke, p. 172
  21. ^ Hooke, p. 231
  22. ^ Hooke, p. 389
  23. ^ McCullough, p. 1005
  24. ^ Brewer, "Conscript Fathers"
  25. ^ Cic. ad Attic i. 14
  26. ^ Dio. xliii. 47
  27. ^ Suet. Aug.35
  28. ^ Dio liv. 14
  29. ^ a b Roman antiquities: or, An account of the manners and customs of the Romans By Alexander Adam, page 3
  30. ^ Brewer, "Conscript Fathers"
  31. ^ Livy, (II.I.II)
  32. ^ Festus, (304L)
  33. ^ McCullough, p. 1005
  34. ^ Livy, Book 1
  35. ^ Abbott, 26
  36. ^ Livy, book 2
  37. ^ a b c The Cambridge Ancient History By John Bagnell Bury, page 181
  38. ^ 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.
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