07b: Mos Maiorum - Way of Our Elders

Every nation prides itself on its core values. A nation's actual core values may differ from its official core values, as expressed in its laws. For instance, neither the Constitution nor any US law states that countries which the United States will regret it bitterly. Yet it is one of America's core values that nobody messes with the United States. Americans also tend to believe that their individual political beliefs reflect our nation's core values. For example, some interpret the writings of our Founders as proof that America always was and always should be a Christian nation. Others use the writings of our Founders as evidence that church and state should always remain completely separate. Even though scholars have been reading and interpreting the writing of our Founders for two centures, I don't see America reaching a consensus on the church/state relationship any time soon. The Romans prided themselves on having the same core values as those held by their ancestors. The Romans were so sure these core values lived in their heart, that they didn't even have to be written down. They were in the Romans' blood. In Latin, the Romans referred to their ancient ancestral core values as the mos maiorum - the "way of our elders."

Immediately after birth, an infant Roman was laid on the ground for ihis or her father to acknowledge as his own. The father alone decided whether to raise the child or not, and if not, the child was abandoned. This is a vivid illustration of what the Romans called patria potestas: a father's absolute power over his wife and children. In his role of paterfamilias, the father made all the decisions with no input from anyone else. He could decide who his children married; he could give them up for adoption or sell them into slavery; he could even kill them if he wanted. A father's power over his wife and sons lasted until the day he died; a son become a full fledged paterfamilias only after his father died. A father's power over his daughter lasted until the day she married into her husband's family, thereby acquiring a new paterfamilias. Note, though, that many Roman women obeyed their birth father regardless of the family they had married into: blood was thicker than marriage vows. A divorced woman returned to the control of her oldest male relative until she remarried; a widow was returned to the control of her son. Unsurprisingly, a wife's status in Roman tradition was roughly equivalent to that of her children: as the supreme god Juppiter was to the universe, so the father of the house was to his wife and his children.

Roman society was the Roman family writ large. The two social classes in early Rome were the patricians, which consisted of the upper class, and the lower class, called the plebeians. The word patrician is derived from the Latin word pater, or "father." The word plebeian comes from the verb pleo, meaning "to fill up." According to the almighty mos maiorum, the patrician class's relationship to the plebeians was analogous to the power of the paterfamilias over his wife and children. Once the kings were run out, only patricians could hold elected office and wield imperium. Only patricians could command armies, and dispense justice. Plebeians were expected to do as they were told, without any hope of bettering their lot: marriage between the two classes was strictly forbidden. But to help take care of plebeian social concerns, the Romans developed a practice called "patronage," in which a given patrician served as patron (yet another word derived from pater) to a number of plebeian clients. The patron provided his clients things with legal protection and handouts when times were rotten. He also commanded his clients in the army during war, and may have provided them with weapons. In return, the clients did whatever favors their patron might ask, often lining up at his house at daybreak to say good morning and ask for odd jobs. If the patron was running for political office, the clients were expected to follow the patron around and serve as his bodyguards and/or applauding audiences.

Also included in the mos maiorum was the cursus honorum, or course of offices through which a Roman could rise politically. Because opposition to monarchy had become a Roman core value, the Romans believed that politicians should rise up a "ladder" of offices to the highest office, or consulship. While a politician didn't absolutely have to be a certain age to run for office, or even hold the previous office in the cursus honorum, exceptions were very few. Holding a magistracy twice in a row was very strongly frowned upon.

• 2 consuls
  - minimum age to serve: 43
  - could convoke assemblies
  - had imperium: could command armies
• 2 praetors (later up to 8 praetors)
  -  minimum age to serve: 40
  - conducted trials in the Forum
  - had imperium: could command armies
• 4 aediles
  - minimum age to serve: 34
  - oversaw public works
  - put on  public games at private expense
• 10 quaestors (later up 20 quaestors)
  - minimum age to serve: 31
  - affiliated with treasury
  - automatic appointment to Roman Senate

There were also three important offices which existed outside of the cursus honorum:

• 10 tribunes ("protectors of the people")
  - had to be 100% plebeian
  - could veto anything
  - anyone who harmed them was to be punished
• 2 Censors
  - elected every five years from among the ex-consuls
  - held census of all citizens
  - examined Senators for morality
  - handled public contracts
• dictator
  - elected only in emergencies
  - holds office for no more than 6 months
  - assistant = "master of horse"

Finally, the Romans had three official popular assemblies, in descending order of importance: the Centuriate Assembly (which elected consuls and praetors), the Tribal Assembly (which elected aediles and quaestors), and the Assembly of the People (which elected tribunes). Any of the three could pass laws which were binding upon the state. The fourth and most powerful assembly, the Senate, (otherwise known as the patres, or "fathers") was officially only an advisory body and could not pass binding laws. But its advice basically had the force of law according to the mos maiorum. In other words, the Senate had patria potestas
over the Roman government. And what a Roman's father said was what a good Roman did.

Yet part of Rome's genius included its ability to move away from the mos maiorum when clearly necessary. The foundation of the Republic was but the first example. Another example is creation of Rome's first written law code, The Code of XII Tables, in 451-450 BC. The plebeians were fed up with how the patrician magistrates interpreted the as yet unwritten laws. It seemed that no matter what the circumstances, the laws somehow always went against the plebeians. After decades of agitation, a code of laws was adopted.  Granted, the resulting Code of XII Tables was not a systematic set of laws. And it still favored the patricians. For one thing, it specified stricter penalties for guilty plebeians than for guilty patricians. Yet the Code of XII Tables fundamentally stabilized Roman society by establishing the rule of law. Over a period of time, through a process called the "Conflict of the Orders," the plebeians built upon the rule of law to win further concessions, such as the right to elect tribunes, marry patricians, and even hold the consulship. The system of "Latin Rights" made it possible for Italians blessed with such rights to transition smoothly into Roman citizenship, adding not only numerical weight but needed fresh blood to the Roman citizen body.