patrician

& s. [Fr. patricien; Lat. patri cius, from pater (gen it. patris )=a father; Sp. & Port. patricio; Ital. patrizio.] A. As adj .: Of or pertaining to the Roman patricians; pertaining to a person of noble blood; sena. torial, wealthy; not plebeian. "The government would have been entirely in patri cian hands." -Macaulay: Hist. Eng., ch. xix. B. As substantive: 1. A Roman senator. "The proudest and most perfect separation which can be found in any age or country between the nobles and the people, is perhaps that of the patricians and the plebeians." -Gibbon: Decline and Fall , ch. xvii. 2. A person of noble birth; a nobleman; a wealthy noble. 3. One who is familiar with the writings of the early fathers of the church; one versed in patristic learning. The Roman patricians consisted of about three hundred gentes , houses, or clans, who, descending from the first Roman senators, constituted the aristocracy of the city and territory. To these were gradually added many individuals adopted into the gentes, and the descendants of both cla es. Each of the gentes had a common name. They were subdivided into families. At first the patricians monopolized all high offices in the state, but after political contests with the plebeians, lasting for centuries, Licinius (B. C. 365) carried his rogation, by which plebeians were admitted to the consulate, and to the custody of the Sibylline books. Pa-triç-1-ā-ni, s . pl . [See def.] Church Hist.: A Manichæan sect, the followers of one Patricius, of whom nothing is known with certainty. They probably arose in the fourth century. They taught that suicide was lawful, since man's body was the work of the devil. They are not mentioned by Epiphanius. pa-tri-cian-işm, 8. [English patrician; -ism. ] The rank or character of patricians. patrociny A. As subst.: One who loves his fatherland; one who is zealous in defending and supporting the cause or interests of his country.