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. Adopted members of a gens are shown in
Late Roman and Byzantine periods. In ancient Rome, a gens , 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). Roman society under the Republic was a cultural mix of Latin, Etruscan, and Greek elements, ... About a dozen remaining patrician gentes and twenty plebeian ones thus formed a new elite, called the nobiles, or Nobilitas. Much of individuals' social standing depended on the gens to which they belonged. What happened to the "gentes maiores" patrician families (Aemilii, Claudii, Cornelii, Fabii, Manlii, and Valerii) after Rome became an Empire? Patrician gentes fall into four categories: The gens (plural gentes) was a Roman, Italic, or Etruscan family, consisting of all those individuals who shared the same nomen and claimed descent from a common ancestor. Certain gentes were considered patrician, others plebeian, while some had both patrician and plebeian branches. However, several of the oldest and most noble patrician houses frequently used rare and unusual praenomina.Certain families also deliberately avoided particular praenomina. The following 6 pages are in this category, out of 6 total. For example, the 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. It may also be that individual members of a gens voluntarily left or were expelled from the patriciate, along with their descendants. Certain gentes were considered patrician, others plebeian, while some had both patrician and plebeian branches. Adoptions were very common among the Romans. The comments in parentheses refer to their current status. Most gentes regularly employed a limited number of 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. The comments in parentheses refer to their current status. Gentes were divided between Patricians, i.e. A continuación se enumeran las gentes de la Antigua Roma cuyos nombres han quedado registrados en fuentes literarias, epigráficas o numismáticas. ( Matthias Gelzer, "The Roman Nobility", 1969, p.153.) those who were members of the clans (gentes) whose members originally comprised the whole citizen body. the aristocratic families linked with the founding of Rome, and Plebeians - the rest of society. However, a series of laws promulgated in 451 and 450 BC as the Many gentes included both patrician and plebeian branches. Audens sent a letter to the senate Dec. 24, 1998 thanking us for our "unanimous approval in raising my Gens Minucia to Patrician Level." Patricians historically had more privileges and rights than plebeians. Hier gelang es dem Plebs, sich nach und nach immer mehr politische Rechte zu ergattern, bis den Patriziern einzig einige, eher unbedeutende Es entstand eine neue, bedeutendere Oberschicht, die Mit der Zeit wurde die Erhebung in den Patrizierstand für die Kaiser gängige Praxis, um verdiente Männer auszuzeichnen, sodass der Status eines Patriziers zu einem bloßen Ehrentitel wurde. 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. According to tradition, the patricians were descended from the "city fathers", or Numerous sources describe two classes amongst the patrician gentes, known as the For the first several decades of the Republic, it is not entirely certain which gentes were considered patrician and which plebeian. In at least some cases, this was because of traditions concerning disgraced or dishonored members of the gens bearing a particular name.