[101] Cf. Mommsen, Röm. Forsch. i. 227.
[102] From the root pa, to protect, preserve, conservare; Pott, Wurzel-Wörterb. d. Indog. Spr. (2d ed.), 221; Corssen, Ausspr. i. 424; Schrader, Sprachvergl. u. Urgesch. 538; Lécrivain, in Daremberg et Saglio, Dict. ii. 1507.
[103] Dig. 1. 16. 195. 2: “Pater familias appellatur qui in domo dominium habet.” In like manner patronus is protector of clients, pater patriae protector of his country; Pott, ibid. 227.
[104] Ulpian, in Dig., ibid.: “Pater autem familias recte hoc nomine appellatur, quamvis filium non habeat; non enim solam personam eius, sed et ius demonstramus: denique et pupillum patrem familias appellamus.”
[105] Livy i. 32. 10 (from a fetial formula).
[106] Rubino, Röm. Verfassung und Geschichte, 186; Mommsen, Röm. Forsch. i. 228, n. 16.
[107] In the same way reges is made to include the whole family of the rex; Livy i. 39. 2. For other illustrations of the same principle, see Rubino, ibid. 188, n. 1.
[108] The Twelve Tables seem to apply it to all patricians, not to senators alone: Cicero, Rep. ii. 37. 63: “Conubia ... ut ne plebei cum patribus essent;” Livy iv. 4. 5: “Ne conubium patribus cum plebe esset.” These passages, however, do not afford absolute proof; for Gaius, bk. vi ad legem Duodecim Tabularum (Dig. 1. 16. 238: “Plebs est ceteri cives sine senatoribus”), probably commenting on the very law quoted by Cicero and Livy, seems to understand patres as senators; cf. the prohibition of intermarriage between senators and their agnatic descendants on the one hand and freed persons on the other; Dig. xxii. 2. 44; Roby, Rom. Priv. Law, i. 130; Vassis, in Athena, xii. 57 f. In some instances, however, as in the expression “a patribus transire ad plebem” (Vell. ii. 45. 1) patres is certainly equivalent to patricii.
[109] Cf. gentilicius from gentilis; tribunicius from tribunus, Pott, ibid. 227. Patricius is an adjective signifying paternal, ancestral, belonging to parents or progenitors; Corssen, ibid. i. 53.
[110] In his work on the Comitia, quoted by Fest. 241. 21: “Patricios eos appellari solitos qui nunc ingenui vocentur.”