Note 153 — Chapter II · THE SOCIAL COMPOSITION OF THE PRIMITIVE POPULUS
Reading edition
Top. 6. 29: “Gentiles sunt inter se, qui eodem nomine sunt. Non est satis. Qui ab ingenuis oriundi sunt. Ne id quidem satis est. Quorum maiorum nemo servitutem servivit. Abest etiam nunc. Qui capite non sunt deminuti. Hoc fortasse satis est. Nihil enim video Scaevolam pontificem ad hanc definitionem addidisse;” cf. Cincius, in Fest. ep. 94.
As the word itself indicates, gentiles are members of a gens, and no other members are known to the sources. If it were true, as Mommsen, Röm. Staatsr. iii. 66, supposes, that there were dependent members not termed gentiles, a name would have been given this dependent relation, or the jurists would have defined it, or some ancient writer would at least have mentioned it. The attempt of Kübler, Wochenschr. f. kl. Philol. xxv (1908). 541 f., to prove, on the authority of Cicero, Tim. 11. 41, that clients were termed quasi gentiles is simply absurd. The passage does not even hint at clientage; and the quasi gentiles of the immortal gods, according to this passage, were related to the gods by birth, as the word gignatis proves. From this point of view men might be called the children of the gods; but because the divine element in both men and gods comes alike from the Creator, it is possible to place them more nearly on a level with one another—in a relation like that of gentiles. Kübler’s other remarks on the gens, 539-43, are equally unconvincing.