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In ancient Rome, a gens ( or , ; : gentes ) was a family consisting of individuals who shared the same nomen gentilicium and who claimed descent from a common ancestor. A branch of a gens, sometimes identified by a distinct cognomen, was called a stirps (: stirpes). The gens was an important social structure at Rome and throughout Roman Italy during the period of the Roman Republic. 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 the gens as a social structure declined considerably in Roman Empire, although the gentilicium continued to define the origins and dynasties of the ancient Romans, including the emperors.
''Harper's Dictionary of Classical Literature and Antiquities'', Second Edition, Harry Thurston Peck, Editor (1897).
''Oxford Classical Dictionary'', 2nd Ed. (1970).
The oldest gentes were said to have originated before the foundation of Rome (traditionally 753 BC), and claimed descent from mythological personages as far back as the time of the Trojan War (traditionally ended 1184 BC). However, the establishment of the gens cannot long predate the adoption of hereditary surnames. The nomen gentilicium, or "gentile name", was its distinguishing feature, for a Roman citizen's nomen indicated his membership in a gens.Eratosthenes, Chronographia, cited in Michael Wood, In Search of the Trojan War (1985).Livy, Ab Urbe Condita, 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 into a gens and acquire its nomen. A libertus, or "freedman", usually assumed the nomen (and sometimes also the praenomen) of the person who had Manumission him, and a naturalized citizen usually took the name of the patron who granted his citizenship. 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, Editors.
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 Junia gens avoided the praenomina Titus and Tiberius after two members with these names were executed for treason. A similar instance supposedly led the assembly of the Manlia gens to forbid its members from bearing the praenomen Marcus, although this prohibition does not seem to have been strictly observed.Livy, Ab Urbe Condita, Book VI.
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 and religious practices, but comparatively little influence on the political and constitutional history of Rome.
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 Aemilia gens, Claudia gens, Cornelia gens, Fabia gens, Manlia gens, and Valeria gens. Nor is it certain whether this distinction was of any practical importance, although it has been suggested that the princeps senatus, or speaker of the Roman senate, 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 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 in 367 BC. Another law promulgated as part of the tables forbade the intermarriage of patricians and plebeians, but this was repealed after only a few years, by the Lex Canuleia 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 largely symbolic, with only a few priesthoods and ceremonial offices restricted to patricians. However, such was their prestige that, beginning with the administration of Caesar, and continuing into imperial times, a number of families were raised to the patriciate, replacing older families that had become extinct or faded into obscurity, and which were no longer represented in the Roman senate. By the third century, the distinction between patricians and plebeians had lost its relevance. The emperor Constantine and his successors revived the title as a mark of distinction granted to individuals, rather than a class to which an entire family belonged.
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