The Brothers Gracchi

[dianamt54]

Help! Can Patricians run for Tribune of the Plebs? Tiberius Gracchus, I thought was a patrician but yet he was Tribune of the Plebs.

[Primus Pilus]

Help! Can Patricians run for Tribune of the Plebs? Tiberius Gracchus, I thought was a patrician but yet he was Tribune of the Plebs.

 

He was Plebeian via his paternal name, Sempronius... the lineage that determined social affiliation. His maternal side was patrician via the Cornelius gens, but it didn't matter.

[Klingan]

Some Patricians choose do be adopted by a Plebeians and by this become plebs them selfs, allowing them to become tribunes. I have an example of this somewhere I just cannot reckon where.

[Primus Pilus]

Some Patricians choose do be adopted by a Plebeians and by this become plebs them selfs, allowing them to become tribunes. I have an example of this somewhere I just cannot reckon where.

 

P. Clodius Pulcher, tribunus plebis 58 BC. While patricians were likely adopted by plebs on occasion throughout Roman history, this is the only time it actually led to a patrician serving as tribune (and was actually done for that purpose).

[Klingan]

Some Patricians choose do be adopted by a Plebeians and by this become plebs them selfs, allowing them to become tribunes. I have an example of this somewhere I just cannot reckon where.

 

P. Clodius Pulcher, tribunus plebis 58 BC. While patricians were likely adopted by plebs on occasion throughout Roman history, this is the only time it actually led to a patrician serving as tribune (and was actually done for that purpose).

 

Ah yes, Pulcher how could I forget. Thanks for filling me in

[Pompieus]

There was also the case of C Servilius Geminus (Pr 220BC) who was treacherously imprisoned by the Gauls while a triumvir for distribution of land in Cisalpine Gaul in 218 and held until rescued by his son, the consul of 203 who had been tribune in 212. The other son, Marcus, was also consul (202), and both replaced plebians in important priesthoods. Confusingly the other main branch of the Servilii, the Caepiones, remained patricians.

[M. Porcius Cato]

There was also the case of C Servilius Geminus (Pr 220BC) who was treacherously imprisoned by the Gauls while a triumvir for distribution of land in Cisalpine Gaul in 218 and held until rescued by his son, the consul of 203 who had been tribune in 212. The other son, Marcus, was also consul (202), and both replaced plebians in important priesthoods. Confusingly the other main branch of the Servilii, the Caepiones, remained patricians.

 

I think there might be an error or two here, though the fault is partly Livy's.

 

C Servilius, the triumvir taken by the Boii, does not appear to have taken the path of Pulcher to the plebeian caste. His son--listed in the Capitoline Fasti with the cognomen Nepos and not Geminus (as Livy would have it)--did serve as a plebeian aedile, but did so unaware of his father's existence, and a special rogatio was required to protect him from his illegal election to the tribuneship. This rogatio makes no sense if C Servilius had been plebeian.

 

For this reason, I don't really think that C Servilius should be counted as a precedent for the weird adoption to the plebeian caste by Caesar's Pretty Boy.

 

FWIW, over the 700 years that the Servilii served Rome, there were several patrician and plebeian branches, including Ahala, Axilla, Caepio, Casca, Geminus, Glaucia, Globulus, Priscus Fidenas, Rullus, Structus, Tucca, and Vatia Isauricus.

[Pompieus]

You may be right...there is some controversy over which Servilius transferred to the plebs. The argument for the praetor of 220 BC comes from Munzer's Roman Aristocratic Parties and Families Pg 128-135.

Edited February 28, 2008 by Pompieus

[M. Porcius Cato]

You may be right...there is some controversy over which Servilius transferred to the plebs. The argument for the praetor of 220 BC comes from Munzer's Roman Aristocratic Parties and Families Pg 128-135.

 

Thanks for the reference--I look forward to reading it. FWIW, I relied on Smith's Biography.

[M. Porcius Cato]

According to Broughton's Magistrates of the Roman Republic, the tribune of 212 was C. Servilius Casca, and Broughton also lists the triumvir of 218 as "C. Servilius (Geminus)". Critically, however, Broughton lists neither as belonging to the patrician branch of the Servilii.

[Pompieus]

This is a little confusing as these old-time Prussian professors seem to take a good deal for granted.

 

Munzer (apparently following Mommsen) assumes C Servilius C f P n Nepos (cos 203) was plebian and held the tribunate and plebian aedileship. He also assumes that M Servilius C f P n Pulex Geminus (cos 202) was his brother, was also plebian, and that both were sons of C Servilius Geminus who was imprisoned by the Boii and released, as Livy says, by his son the consul of 203 - who he calls "Geminus". Apparently it was the father and uncle of the prisoner who were identical twins and got the cognomen.

 

Munzer's argument concerns which of these Servilii (father or sons) made the switch to the plebs. He says that Mommsen believed that the elder Servilius was a patrician and that his approval was required when his sons transferred to the plebs; this was not obtained because everyone thought he was dead. When he turned up alive it made the renunciation of patrician status by the sons invalid. Thus the rogatio referred to by Livy maintained the transition by recognizing that the sons had acted in good faith of the fathers death. Munzer, however, says that if the father was a prisoner of war , he forfeited his citizenship (!? is this true?!) and possibly the right of the children to hold any office was in question. However, he hesitates to rely on this argument against Mommsen ("the master of scholarship"), and argues that it was the father who had renounced patrician status and the sons had inherited plebian status. His arguments are:

1. It is unlikely that both brothers would have transferred to the plebs- with the father gone one would have been left to continue the patrician line (the father had had an elder brother or cousin Gnaeus, who was killed at Cannae).

2. Both brothers were plebians early in life as they succeeded plebians in important priesthoods at early ages (an augurate in 211 for Marcus and pontificate 210 for Gaius who may have been decemvir sacrorum even earlier-possibly before his father's imprisonment in 218).

 

A little thin - but interesting I guess. The prizes sought by the renunciation of patrician status evidently were the priesthoods reserved for plebians.