From JonForest@aol.com Tue Aug 31 19:09:09 1999 Received: from mxu2.u.washington.edu (mxu2.u.washington.edu [140.142.32.9]) by lists.u.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW99.02/8.9.3+UW99.01) with ESMTP id TAA58448 for ; Tue, 31 Aug 1999 19:09:08 -0700 From: JonForest@aol.com Received: from imo23.mx.aol.com (imo23.mx.aol.com [198.81.17.67]) by mxu2.u.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW99.02/8.9.3+UW99.08) with ESMTP id TAA03709 for ; Tue, 31 Aug 1999 19:09:07 -0700 Received: from JonForest@aol.com by imo23.mx.aol.com (mail_out_v22.4.) id dRYVa22972 (4332) for ; Tue, 31 Aug 1999 22:08:25 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: Date: Tue, 31 Aug 1999 22:08:25 EDT Subject: Re: Aemillian gens, the Vettenii and Sergii To: classics@u.washington.edu MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: AOL 3.0.i for Mac sub 147 In a message dated 8/31/99 1:32:12 PM, you wrote: >Can anyone give me a quick and dirty rundown on the Aemilian gens, the >Vettenii and the Sergii? And at the risk of showing my total ignorance >on this matter, how many gens were there at the time these particular >branches of the A. were influential? Sorry, but I'm not sure I understand the question. The Aemilii were a gens; but so were the Vettenii and the Sergii. That is, M. Aemilius Lepidus was a member of the gens Aemilia, while L. Sergius Catilina was a member of the gens Sergia. (I know of no Vettenii off the top of my head.) A handy rule of thumb to remember is that if a name ends in -ius it is the name of a gens; if it does not, it is not. So Aemilius and Sergius are gentile names (nomen gentilicium); Lepidus is a cognomen, as is Catilina. How many gentes? Lots and lots at all periods. Not all families, of course, would have been represented in the senate. I hope this is helpful. Jon .