patres conscripti

Wiktionary EN

An honorific term of address for the Roman Senate, literally conscript fathers or fathers and conscripts. Originally most likely an ellipsis of patrēs et cōnscrīptī, seemingly distinct groups of senators in the early Republic. The 7th-century writer Isidore of Seville interprets cōnscrīptī as adjectival, but this reading is now usually rejected; the singular pater cōnscrīptus is, however, attested in Cicero (apparently as a joke).