Note 108 — Chapter II · THE SOCIAL COMPOSITION OF THE PRIMITIVE POPULUS

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.