Note 246 — Chapter XV · THE ROMANS
Reading edition
The pretensions of the senatorial party to be the only true Romans were not altogether unfounded. The terms boni and optimates which they gave themselves were perhaps consciously adapted from the καλοὶ κἀγαθοί of Athens. The importance of nobilitas as a criterion of true Roman blood lay in the fact that it attested lineage in a wholly unmistakable way. We may compare the insistence of Nehemiah upon documentary evidence of Israelitish blood (Neh. vii. 61, 64).