Since the plebeian element in the state had an immense numeri cal preponderance over the patrician, these disabilities were not widely spread, and seem generally to have been cheerfully borne as the price of belonging to the families still recognized as the oldest and noblest in Rome. But the adoption of P. Clodius Pulcher into a plebeian family in 59 B.C. with a view to election to the tribunate shows that a rejection of patrician rights (transitio ad plebem) was not difficult to effect by any patrician who preferred actual power to the dignity of ancient descent. It was not so easy to recruit the ranks of the patricians. The first authenticated instance of the admission of new members to the patriciate is that of the lex Cassia which authorized Caesar as dictator to create fresh patricians. The same procedure was followed by Augustus. The right of creating patricians came to be regarded as inherent in the principate, and was exercised by Claudius and Vespasian without any legal enactment. Patrician rank was regarded as a necessary attribute of the princeps, a fact illustrative of the tenacity with which the Romans clung to the name and form of an institution which had long lost its signifi cance. After the political equalization of the two orders, noble birth no longer constituted a claim to political privilege. Instead of the old hereditary nobility there arose a nobility of office, con sisting of all those families, whether patrician or plebeian, which had held curule office. It was the tenure of office that conferred distinction. In the early days of Rome, office was open only to the member of a patrician gens. In the principate, patrician rank was held to be a dignity suitable to be conferred on an individual holder of office. But the conferment of the rank upon an individual as distinct from a whole family (gens) is enough to show how widely the later conception of patrician rank differed from the ancient.
Under Constantine a new meaning was given to the word patrician. It was used as a personal title of honour conferred
for distinguished services. It was a title merely of rank, not of office; its holder ranked next after the emperor and the consul. It naturally happened, however, that the title was generally be stowed upon officials, especially on the chief provincial governors, and even upon barbarian chieftains whose friendship was valu able enough to call forth the imperial benediction. Among the former it appears to have become a sort of ex officio title of the Byzantine vice-gerents of Italy, the exarchs of Ravenna ; among the barbarian chiefs who were thus dignified were Odoacer, Theodoric, Sigismund of Burgundy, Clovis, and even in later days princes of Bulgaria, the Saracens, and the West Saxons. The dignity was not hereditary and belonged only to individuals ; thus a patrician family was merely one whose head enjoyed the rank of patricius. With the word were associated such further titles as eminentia,magnitudo,magnificentia. Those patricians who were purely honorary were called honorarii or codicillarii; those who were still in harness were praesentales. They were all distinguished by a special dress or uniform and in public drove in a carriage.