2.1 Introduction
The most obvious divisions in senatorial society were not based on caste. Instead they reflected success in gaining magistracies, with consuls at the top, followed by praetors and the junior ranks.Footnote 1 The consulship was treated as conferring ‘nobilitas’, which extended to a man’s descendants.Footnote 2 But patrician status took privilege even further, as did the major priesthoods.
There were also important structural divisions, at the start of the senatorial career. These were incorporated in the initial post, the vigintivirate, held at about the age of twenty.Footnote 3 The four parallel posts evidently mirrored the social spectrum within the aristocracy, and had noticeable effects on later success.Footnote 4 First in the hierarchy were the three monetales (or ‘triumviri aere argento auro flando feriundo’). Below them were the ten iudices (or ‘decemviri stlitibus iudicandis’), followed by the four viocuri (or ‘quattuorviri viarum curandarum’) and the three capitales (‘triumviri capitales’).Footnote 5 To be a monetalis placed a man at the top of the tree as a vigintivir.
In view of the social distinctions seen in Figure 2.1, it is very unlikely that being allotted to a particular college was based on an assessment of career potential, although this has been suggested.Footnote 6 Nevertheless, the viocuri stand out for their very active role (see Section 2.4), although this did not transform their social position, as seen in the priesthood hierarchy (Fig. 2.1).
Figure 2.1 Access to major priesthoods: percentage who hold a major priesthood
(for social categories, see Table 2.1)
The social standing of the different groups was largely reflected in their access to patrician rank (Table 2.2). Only the monetales have a majority of patricians, the other large patrician bloc being in the iudices. The figure for capitales is anomalous, but this group rose dramatically in status in the third century, and three of its four patricians belong to this period.Footnote 7
Table 2.1 Totals by social group
| Total | Percent | |
|---|---|---|
| 1. All patricians (PAT) | 81 | 15 |
| 2. Plebeian monetales (M2) | 31 | 6 |
| 3. Plebeian iudices (S2) | 174 | 31 |
| 4. Plebeian viocuri (V2) | 70 | 13 |
| 5. Plebeian capitales (C2) | 39 | 7 |
| 6. Plebeian non-vigintiviri (NOV) | 134 | 24 |
| 7. Senators from the militiae (MIL) | 28 | 5 |
| TOTAL | 557 |
Table 2.2 The distribution of patricians
| Patricians | Percent | |
|---|---|---|
| Monetales | 48/79 | 61 |
| Iudices | 18/192 | 9 |
| Viocuri | 2/72 | 3 |
| Capitales | 4/43 | 9 |
| Non-vigintiviri | 9/143 | 6 |
| Militiae | 0/28 | 0 |
Patrician rank over-rode every other attribute, and placed the holder on a higher social level, as emerges from office-holding patterns studied in Section 2.2. And the numerous career senators with no vigintivirate formed a further social group. These in turn were separate from the few promoted from the equestrian militiae.Footnote 8 Thus the status hierarchy contained seven categories (Table 2.1).
2.2 Priesthoods, Consulships and Career Scores
The major priesthoods and the consulship also provide important indexes of social standing (Table 2.3). The priesthoods show a continuous descending hierarchy in the first five categories, with patricians far above the rest, holding more than twice as many priesthoods as anyone else. They also far outstrip other groups in the consulship. The priesthood quotients for the first five groups are continuously graded (Fig. 2.1). Although less steep, the sequence is the same in terms of career scores and consulships, except that men in the fourth category, the viocuri, are higher than expected. Their career score ranks second, and their consulship figure is third in the first five places (see Table 2.3).
Table 2.3 Priesthoods, consulships and career scores
| GROUP | Consuls | Percent | Major priesthoods | Percent | Career score (av.) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Patricians (PAT) | 59/81 | 73 | 49 | 60 | 9.2 |
| 2. Plebeian monetales (M2) | 15/31 | 48 | 9 | 29 | 7.5 |
| 3. Plebeian iudices (S2) | 66/174 | 38 | 36 | 21 | 7.1 |
| 4. Plebeian viocuri (V2) | 31/70 | 44 | 9 | 13 | 7.7 |
| 5. Plebeian capitales (C2) | 12/39 | 31 | 4 | 10 | 6.6 |
| 6. Plebeian non-vigintiviri (NOV) | 52/134 | 39 | 16 | 12 | 7.8 |
| 7. Militiae (MIL) | 13/28 | 46 | 3 | 11 | 8.4 |
The non-vigintiviri and the militiae men fall outside the orthodox career structure.Footnote 9 Perhaps surprisingly, they are second only to the patricians in their career scores. Both also hold consulships in quite large numbers, falling behind when it comes to priesthoods.
The close relationship between access to priesthoods and social standing extended even further, with the importance of the individual priesthood reflected in the average social score.Footnote 10 The priesthoods were, in order of precedence, pontifex, augur, quindecemvir sacris faciundis and septemvir epulonum, followed by sodales of the Imperial cult and secondary priesthoods such as fetiales.Footnote 11 For the results, see Fig. 2.2.Footnote 12
Figure 2.2 Priesthood and average social score (for social scores see Appendix 1; ‘Priest2’ comprises fetial, curio, Arval, lupercus and sodalis Titius)
2.3 The Patricians
As the pre-eminent social group, the patricians require separate treatment. Not all belonged to the same vigintivir college (see Section 2.3.2).Footnote 13 But college affiliations mattered less at this level (Table 2.2, with 2.5).Footnote 14 The patricians of the Principate were mainly the creation of the Emperors, the old families having rapidly disappeared.Footnote 15 But their privileges continued.
2.3.1 Locating Patricians
Although patricians formed an undoubted elite, inscriptions do not usually give their rank explicitly.Footnote 16 The term ‘patricius’, which remains extremely rare in our period, evidently meant ‘adlectus inter patricios’, and thus only identified first-generation patricians.Footnote 17 Half the patricians here were located through their tenure of the patrician priesthoods, whether salius or flamen.Footnote 18 Fifteen others were adlected ‘inter patricios’. The rest were identified through their lack of tribunate or aedileship (n=25).Footnote 19 Patricians were of course never seen in these junior posts, and, at a more senior level, they did not hold the prefectures open to other ex-praetors (the two types of praefecti aerarii and the praefectus frumenti dandi).Footnote 20
2.3.2 Patricians as Vigintiviri
It is often maintained that patricians by birth normally became tresviri monetales, and that this was the rule from Vespasian to Severus Alexander.Footnote 21 But three iudices who were certainly patrician, because salius or flamen, seem to be second century.Footnote 22 The most privileged senators certainly gravitated to the upper echelons of the vigintivirate, but there were many exceptions. Among patricians by birth, monetales emerge with 70% of the total, iudices with 20% and other colleges with 10%.Footnote 23 Iudices went on being adlected into the patriciate in all three periods, again showing that membership of the monetales was not essential.Footnote 24 In Period 1 the adlecti also included a capitalis and a viocurus.Footnote 25
It may seem surprising that about one-third of patricians failed to become monetalis when many others were able to do so. But even these patricians possessed considerable advantages: 47% of non-monetalis patricians held major priesthoods, against 29% of monetales who were not patrician (16/34 and 9/31). More than one-third of monetales were apparently non-patrician (31/79 or 39%).Footnote 26 Thus, there were probably enough places among the monetales for the patricians who actually went elsewhere.Footnote 27 Restriction by quota looks unlikely. Patricians by birth account for roughly half of the three annual places for monetales calculated here.Footnote 28 Evidently, the appointment of vigintiviri remained flexible, with some places in the highest college going to patricians, and others to well-connected plebeians. Patronage, usually invisible to us, was of course crucial here.Footnote 29 Imperial biographies readily explain early advancement as the work of particular patrons.Footnote 30 But no such traditions survive for most senators.
2.3.3 Adlection to the Patriciate
The men adlected ‘inter patricios’ were an integral part of the patrician body. There was a recurrent need to replace extinct patrician families, and the adlecti were simply first-generation patricians.Footnote 31 The replacement process seems to have been intermittent, with new adlections only attested under certain Emperors. Monetales predominated here also (10/20), with the rest mainly iudices (7/20).
2.3.4 Patrician Success Rates
Most patricians seen here reached the consulship (Table 2.3), and in the highest posts they are far above their target of 15% (Tables 2.1 and 2.4, col. 1).Footnote 32 By contrast, plebeian iudices (S2), the single biggest bloc of vigintiviri, are strongest at praetorian and junior levels (col. 2). Patricians are under-represented in the careers ending before the consulship, and their careers rarely end with a praetorian military post (Table 2.4, lines A–C). Thus, patrician praetors, unlike many of their plebeian colleagues, could usually count on receiving the consulship as well. The social scores for plebeian senators increase in the upper stages of the career, suggesting that aristocratic standing helped career performance even here (Table 2.4, lines D–E).Footnote 33
Table 2.4 Patrician success rates
| Career–score | Patrician percent (n) | S2 percent(n) | Total | Social score (non-patricians) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A 1–4 | 10% (11) | 44% (48) | 109 | 4.4 |
| B 5–6 | 10% (9) | 27% (25) | 92 | 3.2 |
| C 7–8 | 2% (2) | 33% (35) | 107 | 3.3 |
| D 9–1 | 23% (26) | 28% (31) | 112 | 3.6 |
| E 11+ | 24% (33) | 26% (35) | 137 | 3.8 |
Note: The target percentages are 15% for patricians and 31% for plebeian iudices or S2 (81/557 and 174/557; Table 2.1). Scores 1–4: tribunate/aedileship and below. Scores 5–6: praetorship, curator viarum, praefectus frumenti, iuridicus. Scores 7–8: legionary legate, junior proconsul, praetorian legate-governor and praefectus aerarii. Scores 9–10: suffect and ordinarius consulships. Scores of 11 and above: consular legateships, senior proconsulship, consul bis and praefectus urbi. (For full details, see Appendix 1, Table A2.)
2.3.5 The Patrician as Consul Ordinarius
Patricians had much better prospects of becoming consul ordinarius than other senators. Over half the patrician consuls in the career evidence achieved this distinction (32/60).Footnote 34 Plebeian consuls were mainly suffects, with only 12% becoming ordinarius (22/188).Footnote 35
2.3.6 Patrician Priests
Patricians were required for priestly duties that only a patrician might perform.Footnote 36 Thus, under the lex Ogulnia of 300 BC, 5 pontifices were patrician, and 4 plebeian, with the same totals for augurs.Footnote 37 The patrician figure of 55% is close to the 51% for patrician pontifices and augurs seen here.Footnote 38
Patrician grip on the remaining major priesthoods was weaker (33% of quindecemviri and 17% of epulones).Footnote 39 About 16% of plebeians held a major priesthood.Footnote 40 Patricians held fewer of the secondary priesthoods such as fetial or Arval (in 4% of cases, against 8% for plebeian vigintiviri).Footnote 41 But the salii and flamines were exclusively patrician. Almost half of their members also held major priesthoods.Footnote 42 The sodales of the Emperor were appointed by lot, unlike other priests.Footnote 43 As a result, patrician and plebeian vigintiviri appear on equal terms here.Footnote 44
2.3.7 Patricians in Active Roles
It has been suggested that ‘the patrician senator never sees an army; he accedes to the fasces at 32 …. and may not bother to leave Italy until the sortition … awards Asia or Africa 14 or 15 years later.’Footnote 45 The patrician has also been depicted as a courtier of the Emperor, expected to stay in Rome for that reason.Footnote 46 Sometimes the patrician might accompany the Emperor on campaign, with the exalted title of ‘comes’. About one-third of comites here were patrician.Footnote 47 But the pull of the capital was certainly great, and patricians wishing to stay at home were clearly able to do so.
Nevertheless, about two-fifths of future consuls from the patriciate did hold posts outside Rome after the praetorship, much to their advantage (‘Group A’). Thus, 43% of patrician consuls (26/60) had already commanded a legion, governed an Imperial province, managed a trunk road in Italy, or served as proconsul’s legate (normally in Asia or Africa).Footnote 48 Members of this group achieved the highest posts considerably more often than their colleagues, whether by commanding an army as consular legate, governing Asia or Africa as proconsul, or giving their name to the year as consul ordinarius.Footnote 49 That brought members of the more active group a higher average career score than other patrician consulars: 12.0 compared with 10.7.Footnote 50
Patricians were also prominent as praefecti urbi. This was the highest post open to senators.Footnote 51 The prefect of the city exercised criminal jurisdiction in Rome itself and within a 100-mile radius, and had extensive powers of banishment (Chapter 9: see Footnote 9.3, n. 43). He also supervised banking and the livestock markets.Footnote 52
2.3.8 Career Differences between Patricians
The patrician vigintiviri (n=72) can be divided into monetales and the rest (Table 2.5). The monetales have a higher career score, and they are well ahead as major priests (71% as against 42%). More held consulships (77% against 63%). Among quaestors of the Emperor, variation is insignificant (Table 2.5), but the monetales heavily predominate in the prized junior post of praefectus urbi feriarum LatinarumFootnote 53 and they contribute almost all the patrician sodales.Footnote 54
Table 2.5 Career differences between patrician vigintiviri
| Category | Career score | Consul (N) | Quaestor Augusti | Adlected patrician |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monetales | 9.8(48) | 37 | 27 | 10 |
| Other | 8.1(24) | 15 | 14 | 9 |
| vigintiviri | ||||
| Percentages | ||||
| Monetales | – | 77 | 56 | 21 |
| Other | – | 63 | 58 | 38 |
| vigintiviri |
| Major priest | Flamen | Sodalis | Salius | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monetales | 34 | 6 | 11 | 24 |
| Other | 10 | 3 | 0 | 12 |
| vigintiviri | ||||
| Percentages | ||||
| Monetales | 71 | 13 | 23 | 50 |
| Other | 42 | 13 | 0 | 50 |
| vigintiviri |
Note: The senatorial flaminates of the Imperial cult were reserved for patricians, whereas the four ‘amplissima sacerdotia’ were also open to plebeians (pontifex, augur, quindecemvir sacris faciundis, septemvir epulonum). Overlap with the patrician priesthoods is seen in the case of P. Manilius Vopiscus, the patrician monetalis who was consul ordinarius in 114. He was also flamen, pontifex and salius Collinus (no. 239). For overlap with the salii, see also Footnote n. 42.
2.4 Army Service and the Social Hierarchy
Military service was demanding, time-consuming and took the senator to distant frontier zones, usually in the north. Nevertheless, garrison needs dictated that about half of all budding senators perform a two-year stint as military tribune, while more than one-third of praetorian senators would hold a three-year legionary command.Footnote 55
Although military service was never limited to one part of the Senate, there were groups where it received greater emphasis. The prime case was the viocuri, the junior magistrates responsible for Rome’s streets, the ‘quattuorviri viarum curandarum’. Their tasks were to keep the streets of Rome clean, free from potholes and always open to traffic, and to ensure that the nearby buildings were kept in good repair.Footnote 56 They went on to hold more army posts at all levels than any other group, apart from senators who had held militiae (Table 2.6 percentages). Seventy percent were tribune, above the other plebeian vigintiviri with 64%. Forty-six percent were legionary legate, well above the other plebeian vigintiviri with 30%. And 24% were consular legate, again well above other vigintiviri. Their main rivals here (apart from the ‘specialist’ militiae senators in line 5) were the non-vigintiviri. These produced almost as many legionary legates (40%), though many fewer had served as tribune. The non-vigintiviri, however, had only half as many consular legates: 12% as against 24%.
Table 2.6 Army posts by social category
| Category | Tribunus militum | Legatus legionis | Legatus and tribunus | Consular legate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Plebeian viocuri | 49/70 | 32/70 | 24/32 | 17/70 |
| 2. Patricians | 21/81 | 7/81 | 3/7 | 14/81 |
| 3. Other vigintiviri | 156/244 | 74/244 | 61/74 | 40/244 |
| 4. Non-vigintiviri | 49/134 | 54/134 | 28/54 | 16/134 |
| 5. Militiae senators | 3/28 | 12/28 | 3/28 | 10/28 |
| Percentages | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Category | Tribunus militum | Legatus legionis | Legatus and tribunus | Consular legate |
| Viocuri | 70 | 46 | 75 | 24 |
| Patricians | 26 | 9 | 43 | 17 |
| Other vigintiviri | 64 | 30 | 82 | 16 |
| Non-vigintiviri | 37 | 40 | 52 | 12 |
| Militiae senators | 11 | 43 | 11 | 36 |
Note: The patricians include 9 non-vigintiviri not shown in line 4 (see Footnote n. 23 above).
The viocuri thus seem to have functioned as a kind of military cadre. Their road involvement returned at the praetorian level, where they held twice as many road-curatorships as their colleagues (36% of praetorian senators who were viocuri, compared with 18% of praetorians who were non-vigintiviri or other vigintiviri).Footnote 57 To crown their military efforts, a majority of consular viocuri were promoted to govern a frontier province as legatus Augusti. As many as 55% received this distinction, about one-quarter more than any other major group.Footnote 58
But the viocuri remained a limited case, and they are not enough to prove a general commitment to specialisation and professionalisation. They account for less than one-fifth of senators in the army.Footnote 59 The non-vigintiviri have almost as high a proportion who became legionary legates (41% against 46%), and there are more of them (54 instead of 32). Viocuri provided the highest proportion of consular legates who had commanded legions, but they remained a limited part of the command structure as a whole.Footnote 60
While the emphasis on viocuri and a handful of ‘militiae’ senators in military posts can be taken as a form of optimisation, it would still be reasonable to expect that every general with a large army would have had military command experience.Footnote 61 But that reckons without the power of aristocracy and the forces of patronage that governed most Roman appointments.Footnote 62 Rome’s military history is too fragmentary to reveal how well the system withstood amateurism on the scale seen here. The big standing army and the powerful tax-machine that supported it were probably enough to weight the odds in Rome’s favour most of the time. But military disasters are certainly seen in our limited narrative.Footnote 63 And further well-documented legions, part of the army’s vital core, disappeared without explicit record.Footnote 64 Military command and aristocratic rank are discussed further in Chapter 5.
2.5 Conclusion
The primary status hierarchy consisted of patricians and the four grades of plebeian vigintiviri. Differences in career outcome and in access to priesthoods closely reflected this hierarchy. The system can be seen as heavily aristocratic, conspicuously favouring patricians and the higher social ranks, and drastically limiting the scope for appointments primarily based on merit. Nevertheless, a number of careers, including some of the most successful, were not constrained by the vigintivirate, and these show that there was some flexibility in supplementing the vigintiviri from other sources, including the militiae. Among vigintiviri the viocuri, although neither aristocratic nor very numerous, received military posts more often than most others.
