Page:Roman Constitutional History, 753-44 B.C..djvu/117

Rh. But if none had, he was a new man (novus homo), a man without illustrious lineage. A patrician seems, however, never to have been considered a new man; he had in any case the distinction of birth, and usually of social position. It is possible, too, that all patrician families by this time had one or more ancestors of curule rank. After the admission of the plebeians to all the ordinary curule magistracies and the passage of the law respecting a ten years' interval between two terms in the same office (p. 73), the number of noble plebeian families increased somewhat rapidly; and the new aristocracy came to consist of a decreasing number of patrician, and an increasing number of plebeian, families.

Privileges and Insignia of the Aristocracy. — The most ancient privilege of the aristocracy was no doubt the right enjoyed by the descendants of a deceased curule magistrate to place a wax mask of him in the family hall, and to have it carried in the funeral procession when a member of the family had died (jus imaginum). The aristocracy had, moreover, by law or custom certain insignia — the gold ring (anulus aureus) of the men, the silver-mounted trappings (phalerae) of the young horsemen, the toga bordered with purple (toga praetexta) and the golden amulet case (bulla aurea) of the boys — earnests of future magistracies and triumphs. These insignia may have existed in earlier times, but they gained their political importance in consequence of the Licinian and subsequent laws. They seem as yet to have been worn exclusively by the aristocracy, and were significant in a state where civic equality was observed so strictly even in matters of appearance. Like the patricians, the plebeian aristocrats began to employ a hereditary surname (cognomen). Distinctions existed even among the nobles. Former curule magistrates of the plebeian class were entitled to wear the kind of shoes