The Patron-Client System

The patron-client system was an interlocking network of personal relationships that obligated people to one another. A patron was a man of superior status able to provide benefits to lower-status people; these were his clients, who in return owed him duties and paid him special attention. In this hierarchical system, a patron was often himself the client of a higher-status man.

Benefits and duties created mutual exchanges of financial and political help. Patrons would help their clients get started in business by giving them a gift or a loan and connecting them with others who could help them. In politics, a patron would promote a client’s candidacy for elective office and provide money for campaigning. Patrons also supported clients if they had legal trouble.

Clients had to support their patrons’ campaigns for public office and lend them money to build public works and to fund their daughters’ dowries. A patron expected his clients to gather at his house at dawn to accompany him to the forum, the city’s public center, to show his great status. A Roman leader needed a large house to hold this throng and to entertain his social equals.

Patrons’ and clients’ mutual obligations endured for generations. Ex-slaves, who became the clients for life of the masters who freed them, often handed down this relationship to their children. Romans with contacts abroad could acquire clients among foreigners; Roman generals sometimes had entire foreign communities obligated to them. The patron-client system demonstrated the Roman idea that social stability and well-being were achieved by faithfully maintaining established ties.