patrician, any member of a group of citizen families who, in contrast with the plebeian (q.v.) class, formed a privileged class in early Rome.
The origin of the class remains obscure, but the patricians were probably leaders of the more important families or clans who formed the major part, if not all, of the Senate of the primitive period, as well as the families from whom were drawn the most distinguished part of the early cavalry. They constituted an early nobility of birth. At what stage they hardened into a clearly defined and exclusive caste is uncertain, but the effort by King Servius Tullius to register all citizens in regional tribes and in classes arranged according to wealth helped to codify the distinction between patrician and plebeian. Also the development of the Assembly of the Centuries from a military to a political body gave the wealthier plebeians an influential vote in elections and legislation. After the expulsion of the kings, who may have been some check on patrician control, the patricians attempted to keep sole possession of magistracies, priesthoods, and legal and religious knowledge; there was even a prohibition against intermarriage with plebeians in the law of the Twelve Tables. The great struggle of the republic was the continued effort of the plebeians to achieve political equality, to secure economic relief for their poorer members, and to break the political and religious monopoly of the patricians. Gradually the plebeians were fairly successful. Toward the end of the early republic, patricians retained exclusive control only of some old priesthoods, the office of interrex, or interim head of state, and perhaps that of princeps senatus, or senate leader. In the late republic (i.e., to the 1st century bc) distinctions between patricians and plebeians lost political importance; some patricians became plebeians by adoption.
During the empire (after 27 bc), patrician rank was a prerequisite for ascent to the throne, and only the emperor could create patricians. Necessary for the continuation of ancient priesthoods, patricians had few privileges other than reduced military obligations. After Constantine’s reign (306–337), patricius became a personal, nonhereditary title of honour, ranked third after the emperor and consuls, but the title bestowed no peculiar power.