Patrician families

Didn't Sir Ronald Syme dedicate his life to researching the connections between the Republics Patrician families?

 

There is even a name for this kind of study. Prosopography (?).

 

Did Sir Ronald publish any books on this topic? His stuff is really hard to find here in New Zealand. I'm hoping that I can find some on the net.

The Roman Revolution contains a few prosopographical analyses, but his serious prosopographical work was published in scholarly journals.

Didn't Sir Ronald Syme dedicate his life to researching the connections between the Republics Patrician families?

 

There is even a name for this kind of study. Prosopography (?).

 

Did Sir Ronald publish any books on this topic? His stuff is really hard to find here in New Zealand. I'm hoping that I can find some on the net.

 

The Roman Revolution contains a few prosopographical analyses, but his serious prosopographical work was published in scholarly journals.

Thankyou, Marcus Porcius.

... I am not deluded enough to think that I am descended from one of the patrician Julii.

I am more a pedant than a geek. (Geeks are more intelligent than pedants. )

As a pedant I couldn't stop myself saying this.

Mathematically, you pretty much HAVE to be descended from the Julii.

Not Caesar of course but from some of the family.

2000 years and sixty generations since Caesar!

If you are of European descent then I practically guarantee that you have the blood of emperors and kings running through your veins.

Even if you're not European there is a reasonable chance of finding a bit of Roman DNA in your cells.

Genealogists estimat that 50% of Western Europeans are descended from Charlemagne.

Didn't Sir Ronald Syme dedicate his life to researching the connections between the Republics Patrician families?

 

There is even a name for this kind of study. Prosopography (?).

 

Did Sir Ronald publish any books on this topic? His stuff is really hard to find here in New Zealand. I'm hoping that I can find some on the net.

 

The Roman Revolution contains a few prosopographical analyses, but his serious prosopographical work was published in scholarly journals.

 

Thankyou, Marcus Porcius.

If you are interested in Syme's prosopography (also known as 'stalking ancient Romans'). Take a look at his book 'The Augustan Aristocracy' (Clarendon 1989). This deals with the families of the period in exhaustive - possibly even mind-numbing - detail, and explains clearly who was related/descended from whom and to what degree.

Once you get to know the people involved, this book helps the late Republic and early empire make sense. I wouldn't read something like Gruen's 'Last Generation' without it by my elbow.

Theodore Mommsen the great German scholar of the 1860's said in Romische Forschungen that the sources attested to 22 patrician families still extant after 366 BCE.

Though still in existence, six of these families could show no consul from 366 to the end of the Republic (31 BCE):

Aebutii

Cloelii

Pinarii

Quintilii

Sergii

Verginii

One, the Foslii (or Folii) had one consul (318 BCE)

The other 15 patrician gentes still were active in the highest office:

Cornelii (68 consulships 366-31BCE)

Aemilii (33)

Fabii (31)

Valerii (35)

Claudii (21-not counting the plebian Claudii Marcelii)

(these were known as the gentes maiores)

Iulii (12)

Servilii (18)

Manlii (20)

Postumii (19)

Sulpicii (19)

Quinctii (8)

Papirii (15)

Furii (6)

Veturii (4)

Nautii (2)