The origins of roman clientele: an essay on the formation of patronage relationships in archaic Rome

The aim of this paper is to identify the origin of the clientela in archaic Rome. In order to do that, I will use both the emic and etic approaches. Firstly, I will focus on the ancient authors (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Cicero, Plutarch, Festus, Ampelius) and their interpretations in order to identify the reason that led them to attribute the origin of patronage to Romulus. Secondly, thanks to the anthropological approach and by analysing the recent bibliography I will propose a more plausible hypothesis concerning the formation of the archaic clientela.

Keywords: archaic clientele, patronage, archaic Latium, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, historical anthropology.