INTRODUCTION

In the previous chapter, we set out the wider political context of the early Republic through consideration of the curiae. Our argument was that the curiae were a vital aspect of the Roman constitution, and that one could not identify the patrician gentes neatly with the curiae, but had to develop a more complex and sophisticated analysis. My intention was to clarify the political society in the early Republic, by reference to the assembly structures. In this chapter, we turn to the patriciate itself. Modern scholarship tends to be comfortable with the idea that patricians like the Claudii and the Fabii were organised into gentes; and we have seen Livy report a claim that only patricians were organised by gentes. So who were the patricians?

The following chapters address three key themes. I begin, not with the patriciate itself, but with an investigation of the relationship between individual gentes and ownership of land, starting with the issue of the significance of the fact that some tribes at least bear the names of patrician gentes. The purpose of beginning with the issue of land-ownership is twofold: it addresses directly one of the major areas of confrontation in the sources between patricians and plebeians, and it reveals more about the way in which an economic explanation of the distinctions between social groups at Rome might be made.