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Other royal prerogatives were connected with the primitive conception of a patriarchal monarchy. The king, although he lacks the absolutism of the paterfamilias, occupies much the same position in the state as the father does in the family. In a sense he is owner of the whole community, and as such capable of commanding the munera of the burgesses.[169] But a large portion of the public domain was more peculiarly set apart for his own private use.[170] This crown-land must have been worked mainly by the king’s own clients, who held it precario from him;[171] for there seems no reason to doubt the belief that a large proportion of the half-free Plebeians were in the immediate clientela of the king, connected with the community chiefly through him, its representative. These may have been captives who had submitted to the fides of the state, and whom their conqueror had not attached as dependants to other leading families of the community.

The theory of a kingship is best expressed in the mode in which the monarch ascends the throne. The alternative principles that have usually been recognised are the hereditary, the elective, or that of divine right.