ABSTRACT
In its entry on patria potestas, the supreme power invested in a Roman father, the latest edition of the Oxford Classical Dictionary states the following:
Legends and some accounts from the historic period show patresfamiliae executing, banishing or disowning adult children. Private judicial action, normally on the advice of a council, shows the exercise of patria potestas; execution of traitorous or insubordinate sons by public officials, such as the famous execution of the Bruti (509 BC) or Torquatus (340) by consular fathers . . . exemplify paternal severity in a public role. Sons are portrayed as liable to punishment chiefly for offences against the state.
