HIST 1A Lecture Notes - Lecture 15: Pater Familias, Twelve Olympians, Roman Assemblies
Document Summary
The household is a vital element in roman society. Pater familia is the head of the household: legal power of patria potestas, absolute power over all family members, can kill anyone in his family free of restraint. Formed bonds that were sanctified by both law and custom. People became clients of an entire clan or gens: later attached themselves to individuals. Romans will view their relationships between their allies as a patron client relation. Plebians: were citizens, could make contract, could go to court, could vote, barred from exercising real political power, could not hold magistracies and join assemblies, causes fragmentation in the roman state. By the republic, they were separate classes with their own rights. In the beginning it was mostly animistic: belief in spirits: known as numena, survived well into historical times, these numena were later anthropomorphized into deities. Borrow system of divine rules from the etruscans too.
