Reform was accomplished through legislation, and written law replaced consensus. Because the higher magistracies and priesthoods were originally the prerogative of the patricians, the efforts of plebeians ( plebs) for access could be cast as a threat to tradition (see Conflict of the Orders).

The preservation of the mos maiorum depended on consensus and moderation among the ruling elite, whose competition for power and status threatened it.ĭemocratic politics driven by the charismatic appeal of individuals ( populares) to the Roman people (populus) potentially undermined the conservative principle of the mos. The ability to preserve a strongly centralized sense of identity while adapting to changing circumstances permitted the expansionism that took Rome from city-state to world power. Roman conservatism finds succinct expression in an edict of the censors from 92 BCE, as preserved by the 2nd-century historian Suetonius: “All new that is done contrary to the usage and the customs of our ancestors, seems not to be right.” But because the mos maiorum was a matter of custom, not written law, the complex norms it embodied evolved over time. In this sense, mos becomes less a matter of unchanging tradition than precedent. when conquerors or governors abroad established personal ties as patron to whole communities, ties which then might be perpetuated as a family obligation. Although one of the major spheres of activity within patron-client relations was the law courts, patronage was not itself a legal contract the pressures to uphold one's obligations were moral, founded on the quality of fides, 'trust' (see Values below), and the mos. If the familia was the discrete unit underlying society, these interlocking networks countered that autonomy and created the bonds that made a complex society possible. The relationship was not a unit, but a network ( clientela), as a patronus might himself be obligated to someone of higher status or greater power, and a cliens might have more than one patron, whose interests might come into conflict. Although the obligations of this relationship were mutual, they were also hierarchical. The distinctive social relationship of ancient Rome was that between patron ( patronus) and client ( cliens). The risk and pressure of social censure if he failed to live up to expectations was also a form of mos.

The paterfamilias, or head of household, held absolute authority over his familia, which was both an autonomous unit within society and a model for the social order, but he was expected to exercise this power with moderation and to act responsibly on behalf of his family. At any rate, these hierarchies were traditional and self-perpetuating, that is, they supported and were supported by the mos maiorum. It is perhaps a matter of perspective as to whether society replicated the power structure of its basic building block, the familia (better translated as 'household' than 'family'), or whether the male prerogative in a militarized society imposed itself domestically. The Roman family was hierarchical, as was Roman society.

Mos maiorum