Note 135 — ROMAN PEOPLE (continued 2)

Mucius Scaevola, the great lawyer, defined gentiles as those "qui eodem nomine sunt, qui ab ingenuis oriundi sunt, quorum maiorum nemo servitutem servivit, qui capite non sunt deminuti," Cic. Topica, vi. 29. This is the practical view of a lawyer of the last century b.c., and does not take account of the sacra gentilicia, which had by that time decayed or passed into the care of sodalitates: Marquardt, p. 132 foll.; De Marchi, ii. p. 3 foll. The notion of descent from a common ancestor is of course ideal, but none the less a factor in the life of the gens; it crops up, e.g., in Virgil, Aen. v. 117, 121, and Servius ad loc.