ABSTRACT
The steady decline of the Patriciate and the corresponding diminution of its influence on general policy are seen very clearly in the composition of the body which had hitherto been its embodiment and stronghold-the Senate. Before 400, the whole Senate had been Patrician. In the fourth century it still contained 130 Curule Patricians as against 65 Plebeians-a big majority. By the end of the third century, in 216 B.C., the Patricians had lost even that majority; there were 73 Curule Patricians as against 75 Plebeians, and the difference must have been still greater for the non-Curule Senators. The movement became still more rapid in the last years of the third century and the first years of the second; in 179 B.C. the Patricians held only 88 seats in the Senate, as against 216 Plebeians.
