Patron-Client Relationship

[Lothia]

Ave Civitas,
I was wondering, A patron can have many clients, but could a client have more than one patron?

Thanks

[Michael J. Taylor]

The basic answer would be yes. Some patron-client relationships were quite informal, it always denoted a difference in power and status, but was not guided by any highly formalized code (with perhaps the exception that the duties a freed slave owed his/her patron were often time contractually stipulated). Take a hypothetical example: a Roman veteran might treat his old commanding general as a patron for certain levels (say voting for him and his family in elections), but then be economically dependent on the good graces of the big landowner who lived next to him.

[Epictetus]

Ditto to what Michael said. Having multiple patrons could get complicated, though. There is a memorial in the J. Paul Getty Museum which details an extremely convoluted relationship among multiple freedmen and multiple patrons. Generally, a freedman had a senior patron - whoever had owned the highest percentage of the freed slave. If shares were equal, the patron seniority could be determined by the relationships between the patrons or perhaps by other obscure methods.

Probably it was necessary for legal reasons for a freedman to have a senior patron. According to the Twelve Tables, if a freedman died without heirs his property reverted back to his patron. Additionally, the freedman took the name of his senior patron.

Note this is about a freedman, though. I don't know if a regular free citizen would have to have a senior patron or not. It could be uncomfortable if a client's two patrons were running against each other in an election or were suing each other. Who was the client supposed to support? So it is possible that there was some sort of seniority present in all such relationships, but I'm just guessing.

[Lothia]

Thank you both.

As always, your answers were great.
Tom