In
ancient Rome
In modern historiography, ancient Rome refers to Roman civilisation from the founding of the city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD. It encompasses the Roman Kingdom (753–509 B ...
, a gens ( or , ; plural: ''gentes'' ) was a family consisting of individuals who shared the same
nomen and who claimed descent from a common ancestor. A branch of a gens was called a ''stirps'' (plural: ''stirpes''). The ''gens'' was an important
social structure
In the social sciences, social structure is the aggregate of patterned social arrangements in society that are both emergent from and determinant of the actions of individuals. Likewise, society is believed to be grouped into structurally rel ...
at Rome and throughout
Italia
Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...
during the period of the
Roman Republic
The Roman Republic ( la, Res publica Romana ) was a form of government of Rome and the era of the classical Roman civilization when it was run through public representation of the Roman people. Beginning with the overthrow of the Roman Kin ...
. Much of individuals' social standing depended on the gens to which they belonged. Certain gentes were classified as
patrician, others as
plebeian; some had both patrician and plebeian branches. The importance of membership in a gens declined considerably in
imperial times, although the ''gentilicium'' continued to be used and defined the origins and
dynasties
A dynasty is a sequence of rulers from the same family,''Oxford English Dictionary'', "dynasty, ''n''." Oxford University Press (Oxford), 1897. usually in the context of a monarchical system, but sometimes also appearing in republics. A d ...
of Roman emperors.
[
''Harper's Dictionary of Classical Literature and Antiquities'', Second Edition, ]Harry Thurston Peck
Harry Thurston Peck (November 24, 1856 – March 23, 1914) was an American classical scholar, author, editor, historian and critic.
Biography
Peck was born in Stamford, Connecticut. He was educated in private schools and at Columbia College, gr ...
, Editor (1897)
[
'']Oxford Classical Dictionary
The ''Oxford Classical Dictionary'' (''OCD'') is generally considered "the best one-volume dictionary on antiquity," an encyclopædic work in English consisting of articles relating to classical antiquity and its civilizations. It was first pub ...
'', 2nd Ed. (1970)
Origins
The word ''gens'' is sometimes translated as "race", or "nation", meaning a people descended from a common ancestor (rather than sharing a common physical trait). It can also be translated as "clan", "kin", or "tribe", although the word
''tribus'' has a separate and distinct meaning in Roman culture. A gens could be as small as a single family, or could include hundreds of individuals. According to tradition, in 479 BC the
gens Fabia
In ancient Rome, a gens ( or , ; plural: ''gentes'' ) was a family consisting of individuals who shared the same nomen and who claimed descent from a common ancestor. A branch of a gens was called a ''stirps'' (plural: ''stirpes''). The ''gen ...
alone were able to field a militia consisting of three hundred and six men of fighting age. The concept of the gens was not uniquely Roman, but was shared with communities throughout Italy, including those who spoke
Italic languages
The Italic languages form a branch of the Indo-European language family, whose earliest known members were spoken on the Italian Peninsula in the first millennium BC. The most important of the ancient languages was Latin, the official languag ...
such as
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
,
Oscan
Oscan is an extinct Indo-European language of southern Italy. The language is in the Osco-Umbrian or Sabellic branch of the Italic languages. Oscan is therefore a close relative of Umbrian.
Oscan was spoken by a number of tribes, including th ...
, and
Umbrian
Umbrian is an extinct Italic language formerly spoken by the Umbri in the ancient Italian region of Umbria. Within the Italic languages it is closely related to the Oscan group and is therefore associated with it in the group of Osco-Umbrian lan ...
as well as the
Etruscans
The Etruscan civilization () was developed by a people of Etruria in ancient Italy with a common language and culture who formed a federation of city-states. After conquering adjacent lands, its territory covered, at its greatest extent, rou ...
. All of these peoples were eventually absorbed into the sphere of Roman culture.
Titus Livius
Titus Livius (; 59 BC – AD 17), known in English as Livy ( ), was a Roman historian. He wrote a monumental history of Rome and the Roman people, titled , covering the period from the earliest legends of Rome before the traditional founding in ...
, ''Ab Urbe Condita
''Ab urbe condita'' ( 'from the founding of the City'), or ''anno urbis conditae'' (; 'in the year since the city's founding'), abbreviated as AUC or AVC, expresses a date in years since 753 BC, the traditional founding of Rome. It is an exp ...
'', Book II['']Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology
The ''Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology'' (1849, originally published 1844 under a slightly different title) is an encyclopedia/biographical dictionary. Edited by William Smith, the dictionary spans three volumes and 3,700 p ...
'', William Smith, Editor
The oldest gentes were said to have originated before the
foundation of Rome
The tale of the founding of Rome is recounted in traditional stories handed down by the ancient Romans themselves as the earliest history of their city in terms of legend and myth. The most familiar of these myths, and perhaps the most famous o ...
(traditionally 753 BC), and claimed descent from mythological personages as far back as the time of the
Trojan War
In Greek mythology, the Trojan War was waged against the city of Troy by the Achaeans (Greeks) after Paris of Troy took Helen from her husband Menelaus, king of Sparta. The war is one of the most important events in Greek mythology and has ...
(traditionally ended 1184 BC
). However, the establishment of the gens cannot long predate the adoption of hereditary surnames. The ''
nomen gentilicium
The (or simply ) was a hereditary name borne by the peoples of Roman Italy and later by the citizens of the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire. It was originally the name of one's (family or clan) by patrilineal descent. However, as Rome expande ...
'', or "gentile name", was its distinguishing feature, for a Roman citizen's nomen indicated his membership in a gens.
Eratosthenes
Eratosthenes of Cyrene (; grc-gre, Ἐρατοσθένης ; – ) was a Greek polymath: a mathematician, geographer, poet, astronomer, and music theorist. He was a man of learning, becoming the chief librarian at the Library of Alexandria ...
, ''Chronographia'', cited in Michael Wood, ''In Search of the Trojan War'' (1985)Titus Livius
Titus Livius (; 59 BC – AD 17), known in English as Livy ( ), was a Roman historian. He wrote a monumental history of Rome and the Roman people, titled , covering the period from the earliest legends of Rome before the traditional founding in ...
, ''Ab Urbe Condita
''Ab urbe condita'' ( 'from the founding of the City'), or ''anno urbis conditae'' (; 'in the year since the city's founding'), abbreviated as AUC or AVC, expresses a date in years since 753 BC, the traditional founding of Rome. It is an exp ...
'', Book I
The nomen could be derived from any number of things, such as the name of an ancestor, a person's occupation, physical appearance, character, or town of origin. Because some of these things were fairly common, it was possible for unrelated families to bear the same nomen, and over time to become confused.
Persons could be
adopted
Adoption is a process whereby a person assumes the parenting of another, usually a child, from that person's biological or legal parent or parents. Legal adoptions permanently transfer all rights and responsibilities, along with filiation, from ...
into a gens and acquire its nomen. A ''libertus'', or "
freedman
A freedman or freedwoman is a formerly enslaved person who has been released from slavery, usually by legal means. Historically, enslaved people were freed by manumission (granted freedom by their captor-owners), emancipation (granted freedom a ...
", usually assumed the nomen (and sometimes also the praenomen) of the person who had
manumitted
Manumission, or enfranchisement, is the act of freeing enslaved people by their enslavers. Different approaches to manumission were developed, each specific to the time and place of a particular society. Historian Verene Shepherd states that t ...
him, and a naturalized citizen usually took the name of the
patron
Patronage is the support, encouragement, privilege, or financial aid that an organization or individual bestows on another. In the history of art, arts patronage refers to the support that kings, popes, and the wealthy have provided to artists su ...
who granted his
citizenship
Citizenship is a "relationship between an individual and a state to which the individual owes allegiance and in turn is entitled to its protection".
Each state determines the conditions under which it will recognize persons as its citizens, and ...
. Freedmen and newly enfranchised citizens were not technically part of the gentes whose names they shared, but within a few generations it often became impossible to distinguish their descendants from the original members. In practice this meant that a gens could acquire new members and even new branches, either by design or by accident.
['' Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft'', August Pauly and ]Georg Wissowa
Georg Otto August Wissowa (17 June 1859 – 11 May 1931) was a German classical philologist born in Neudorf, near Breslau.
Education and career
Wissowa studied classical philology under August Reifferscheid at the University of Breslau ...
, Editors
Stirpes
Different branches or ''stirpes'' of a gens were usually distinguished by their
cognomina
A ''cognomen'' (; plural ''cognomina''; from ''con-'' "together with" and ''(g)nomen'' "name") was the third name of a citizen of ancient Rome, under Roman naming conventions. Initially, it was a nickname, but lost that purpose when it became here ...
, additional surnames following the nomen, which could be either personal or hereditary. Some particularly large stirpes themselves became divided into multiple branches, distinguished by additional cognomina.
Praenomina
Most gentes regularly employed a limited number of
personal names
A personal name, or full name, in onomastic terminology also known as prosoponym (from Ancient Greek πρόσωπον / ''prósōpon'' - person, and ὄνομα / ''onoma'' - name), is the set of names by which an individual person is known, ...
, or ''
praenomina
The ''praenomen'' (; plural: ''praenomina'') was a personal name chosen by the parents of a Roman child. It was first bestowed on the ''dies lustricus'' (day of lustration), the eighth day after the birth of a girl, or the ninth day after the birt ...
'', the selection of which helped to distinguish members of one gens from another. Sometimes different branches of a gens would vary in their names of choice. The most conservative gentes would sometimes limit themselves to three or four praenomina, while others made regular use of six or seven.
There were two main reasons for this limited selection: first, it was traditional to pass down family names from one generation to the next; such names were always preferred. Second, most patrician families limited themselves to a small number of names as a way of distinguishing themselves from the plebeians, who often employed a wider variety of names, including some that were seldom used by the patricians. However, several of the oldest and most noble patrician houses frequently used rare and unusual praenomina.
Certain families also deliberately avoided particular praenomina. In at least some cases, this was because of traditions concerning disgraced or dishonoured members of the gens bearing a particular name. For example, the
gens Junia
The gens Junia was one of the most celebrated families of ancient Rome. The gens may originally have been patrician (ancient Rome), patrician, and was already prominent in the last days of the Roman Kingdom, Roman monarchy. Lucius Junius Brutu ...
avoided the praenomina ''
Titus
Titus Caesar Vespasianus ( ; 30 December 39 – 13 September 81 AD) was Roman emperor from 79 to 81. A member of the Flavian dynasty, Titus succeeded his father Vespasian upon his death.
Before becoming emperor, Titus gained renown as a mili ...
'' and ''
Tiberius
Tiberius Julius Caesar Augustus (; 16 November 42 BC – 16 March AD 37) was the second Roman emperor. He reigned from AD 14 until 37, succeeding his stepfather, the first Roman emperor Augustus. Tiberius was born in Rome in 42 BC. His father ...
'' after two members with these names were executed for treason. A similar instance supposedly led the assembly of the
gens Manlia to forbid its members from bearing the praenomen ''
Marcus'', although this prohibition does not seem to have been strictly observed.
Social function of the gens
In theory, each gens functioned as a state within a state, governed by its own elders and assemblies, following its own customs, and carrying out its own religious rites. Certain cults were traditionally associated with specific gentes. The gentile assemblies had the responsibility of adoption and guardianship for their members. If a member of a gens died
intestate
Intestacy is the condition of the estate of a person who dies without having in force a valid will or other binding declaration. Alternatively this may also apply where a will or declaration has been made, but only applies to part of the estat ...
and without immediate family, his property was distributed to the rest of the gens.
The decisions of a gens were theoretically binding on all of its members. However, no public enactment is recorded as having been passed by the assembly of a gens. As a group, the gentes had considerable influence on the development of
Roman law
Roman law is the law, legal system of ancient Rome, including the legal developments spanning over a thousand years of jurisprudence, from the Twelve Tables (c. 449 BC), to the ''Corpus Juris Civilis'' (AD 529) ordered by Eastern Roman emperor J ...
and religious practices, but comparatively little influence on the political and constitutional history of Rome.
Patrician and plebeian gentes
Certain gentes were considered patrician, and others plebeian. According to tradition, the patricians were descended from the "city fathers", or ''patres''; that is, the heads of the family at the time of its foundation by
Romulus
Romulus () was the legendary foundation of Rome, founder and King of Rome, first king of Ancient Rome, Rome. Various traditions attribute the establishment of many of Rome's oldest legal, political, religious, and social institutions to Romulus ...
, the first
King of Rome
The king of Rome ( la, rex Romae) was the ruler of the Roman Kingdom. According to legend, the first king of Rome was Romulus, who founded the city in 753 BC upon the Palatine Hill. Seven legendary kings are said to have ruled Rome until 509 ...
. Other noble families which came to Rome during the time of the kings were also admitted to the patriciate, including several who emigrated from
Alba Longa
Alba Longa (occasionally written Albalonga in Italian sources) was an ancient Latin city in Central Italy, 12 miles (19 km) southeast of Rome, in the vicinity of Lake Albano in the Alban Hills. Founder and head of the Latin League, it was d ...
after that city was destroyed by
Tullus Hostilius
Tullus Hostilius (r. 672–640 BC) was the legendary third king of Rome. He succeeded Numa Pompilius and was succeeded by Ancus Marcius. Unlike his predecessor, Tullus was known as a warlike king who according to the Roman Historian Livy, believ ...
. The last known instance of a gens being admitted to the patriciate prior to the 1st century BC was when the Claudii were added to the ranks of the patricians after coming to Rome in 504 BC, five years after the establishment of the Republic.
Numerous sources describe two classes amongst the patrician gentes, known as the ''gentes maiores'', or major gentes, and the ''gentes minores'', or minor gentes. No definite information has survived concerning which families were numbered amongst the gentes maiores, or even how many there were. However, they almost certainly included the
Aemilii
The gens Aemilia, originally written Aimilia, was one of the greatest patrician families at ancient Rome. The gens was of great antiquity, and claimed descent from Numa Pompilius, the second King of Rome. Its members held the highest offices o ...
,
Claudii
The gens Claudia (), sometimes written Clodia, was one of the most prominent patrician houses at ancient Rome. The gens traced its origin to the earliest days of the Roman Republic. The first of the Claudii to obtain the consulship was Appius C ...
,
Cornelii
The gens Cornelia was one of the greatest patrician houses at ancient Rome. For more than seven hundred years, from the early decades of the Republic to the third century AD, the Cornelii produced more eminent statesmen and generals than any othe ...
,
Fabii,
Manlii
The gens Manlia () was one of the oldest and noblest patrician houses at Rome, from the earliest days of the Republic until imperial times. The first of the gens to obtain the consulship was Gnaeus Manlius Cincinnatus, consul in 480 BC, and for ...
, and
Valerii
The gens Valeria was a patrician family at ancient Rome, prominent from the very beginning of the Republic to the latest period of the Empire. Publius Valerius Poplicola was one of the consuls in 509 BC, the year that saw the overthrow of the ...
. Nor is it certain whether this distinction was of any practical importance, although it has been suggested that the ''
princeps senatus
The ''princeps senatus'' ( ''principes senatus'') was the first member by precedence on the membership rolls of the Roman Senate. Although officially out of the ''cursus honorum'' and possessing no ''imperium'', this office conferred prestige on t ...
'', or speaker of the
Senate
A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the el ...
, was usually chosen from their number.
For the first several decades of the Republic, it is not entirely certain which gentes were considered patrician and which plebeian. However, a series of laws promulgated in 451 and 450 BC as the
Twelve Tables
The Laws of the Twelve Tables was the legislation that stood at the foundation of Roman law. Formally promulgated in 449 BC, the Tables consolidated earlier traditions into an enduring set of laws.Crawford, M.H. 'Twelve Tables' in Simon Hornblowe ...
attempted to codify a rigid distinction between the classes, formally excluding the plebeians from holding any of the major magistracies from that time until the passage of the ''
Lex Licinia Sextia
The Licino-Sextian rogations were a series of laws proposed by tribunes of the plebs, Gaius Licinius Stolo and Lucius Sextius Lateranus, enacted around 367 BC. Livy calls them ''rogatio'' – though he does refer to them at times as ''lex' ...
'' in 367 BC. The law forbidding the intermarriage of patricians and plebeians was repealed after only a few years, by the ''
Lex Canuleia The (‘ Canuleian law’), or , was a law of the Roman Republic, passed in the year 445 BC, restoring the right of (marriage) between patricians and plebeians.
Canuleius' first rogation
Five years earlier, as part of the process of establishing ...
'' in 445 BC.
Despite the formal
reconciliation of the orders in 367, the patrician houses, which as time passed represented a smaller and smaller percentage of the Roman populace, continued to hold on to as much power as possible, resulting in frequent conflict between the orders over the next two centuries. Certain patrician families regularly opposed the sharing of power with the plebeians, while others favoured it, and some were divided.
[ Michael Grant, ''History of Rome'' (1978)]
Many gentes included both patrician and plebeian branches. These may have arisen through adoption or manumission, or when two unrelated families bearing the same nomen became confused. It may also be that individual members of a gens voluntarily left or were expelled from the patriciate, along with their descendants. In some cases, gentes that must originally have been patrician, or which were so regarded during the early Republic, were later known only by their plebeian descendants.
By the first century BC, the practical distinction between the patricians and the plebeians was minimal. Nonetheless, with the rise of imperial authority, several plebeian gentes were raised to the patriciate, replacing older patrician families that had faded into obscurity, and were no longer represented in the
Roman senate
The Roman Senate ( la, Senātus Rōmānus) was a governing and advisory assembly in ancient Rome. It was one of the most enduring institutions in Roman history, being established in the first days of the city of Rome (traditionally founded in ...
. Although both the concept of the gens and of the patriciate survived well into imperial times, both gradually lost most of their significance. In the final centuries of the
Western Empire
The Western Roman Empire comprised the western provinces of the Roman Empire at any time during which they were administered by a separate independent Imperial court; in particular, this term is used in historiography to describe the period fr ...
, ''
patricius'' was used primarily as an individual title, rather than a class to which an entire family belonged.
See also
*
Genos
In ancient Greece, a ''genos'' (Greek: γένος, "race, stock, kin", plural γένη ''genē'') was a social group claiming common descent, referred to by a single name (see also Sanskrit "Gana"). Most ''gene'' were composed of noble families&md ...
– a similar concept in Ancient Greece
*
Gana
The word (; Sanskrit: गण) in Sanskrit and Pali means "flock, troop, multitude, number, tribe, category, series, or class". It can also be used to refer to a "body of attendants" and can refer to "a company, any assemblage or association of ...
- a cognate Sanskrit term referring to a different type of human group
*
List of Roman gentes
The gens (plural gentes) was a Roman family, of Italic or Etruscan origins, consisting of all those individuals who shared the same '' nomen'' and claimed descent from a common ancestor. It was an important social and legal structure in early ...
*
List of Roman nomina
This is a list of Roman nomina. The nomen identified all free Roman citizens as members of individual '' gentes'', originally families sharing a single nomen and claiming descent from a common ancestor. Over centuries, a gens could expand from a ...
*
Roman naming conventions
Over the course of some fourteen centuries, the Romans and other peoples of Italy employed a system of nomenclature that differed from that used by other cultures of Europe and the Mediterranean Sea, consisting of a combination of personal and fami ...
References
External links
*
{{Ancient Rome topics
Ancient Roman families
Social groups