to victory in a mighty contest and had broken into the citadel of the nobility :4 he was less assertive in the Senate, more candi

tocracy rather than in the lower. It is all too easy to tax the Roman nobility in the last epoch of its rule with vice and corru

on. The knights must not be left out of the indictment. Among the old nobility persisted a tradition of service to the State tha

ll: as Rome’s rule extends in Italy, the circle widens from which the nobility is recruited and renewed. None the less, though t

om internal disasters and the rise of dynastic houses of the plebeian nobility . But neither Valerii nor Fabii stand in the foref

The greatest of those families had earned or confirmed their title of nobility by command in war against the Samnites and the Ca

the renovated oligarchy. 5 Among other eminent houses of the plebeian nobility in the Marian faction were the Junii and the Domi

ll time. Caesar possessed close kin in certain houses of the moderate nobility ; 3 and his second wife, Pompeia, doubly recalled

his origin, improving his prospects and ingratiating himself with the nobility to find time to secure the promotion of deserving

had enjoyed in a feudal or tribal order of society. Office conferred nobility ; and the friendship and influence of the municipa

ampania, if not Beneventum in the Samnite country, reinforced the new nobility . 6 These foreign dynasts were taken up and brough

thout shame or compunction. About the early admissions to power and nobility at Rome much will remain obscure and controversia

he governing oligarchy, not least the dynastic houses of the plebeian nobility , had been growing ever closer and more exclusive.

the paternal side the youth came of a respectable family that lacked nobility : his grandfather, a rich banker established at th

he rewards land, money and power, the estates and prerogatives of the nobility for their enjoyment, and the daughters of patrici

ts authority. But prestige it still guaranteed, and the conferment of nobility . The dynasts made arrangements for some years in

198 When a civil war seemed only a contest of factions in the Roman nobility , many young men of spirit and distinction chose C

. Pulcher and Lepidus were not merely noble but of the most ancient nobility , the patrician; which did not in any way hamper t

wars against foreign enemies had augmented the aristocracy with a new nobility . No record stands of the sentiments of the nobile

was the last person of note in a family that claimed descent from the nobility of Alba Longa. More alarming was the news reporte

in. A patent fact, but obscured by pretence and by prejudice. The old nobility of Rome, patrician or plebeian, affected to despi

for magistracies but secured the election of members of a hereditary nobility . Yet the Senate had once seemed to represent the

n to the highest order in state and in society, the consulate brought nobility and a place in the front ranks of the oligarchy.

he Principate and the real working of patronage. Under the Republic nobility of birth, military service, distinction in orator

eius’ consul Gabinius was a politician as well as a soldier. In fact, nobility of birth prevailed and designated its candidates,

s and sought, like Sulla and Caesar before him, to revive the ancient nobility , patrician or plebeian. Valerii, Claudii, Fabii a

ction and wealth, the Princeps had seized all the prerogatives of the nobility . The youth who had invested his patrimony for the

fortune won from confiscation and the treasure of the Ptolemies, the nobility could not compete. Even if lucky enough to have r

wer than eighty men. 1 Upon his own adherents the Princeps bestowed nobility through the consulate, social distinction by adva

eian houses, such as the renegade M. Junius Silanus; but also the new nobility of the Revolution, conspicuous among them the pru

III fuerunt (Diss. Berlin, 1909). Of the families of the old plebeian nobility thus honoured were probably the Calpurnii, Claudi

urnii, Claudii Marcelli, Domitii, Junii Silani and others; of the new nobility , the Aelii Lamiae, Appuleii, Asinii, Cocceii, Sil

row type of Republican politician derived commonly from a more recent nobility , or from none at all. The firmest defenders of Li

5. 3 On the Plautii, one of the earliest houses of the new plebeian nobility , see Münzer, RA, 36ff. One of them was colleague

ollowing among the nobiles. Of the dynastic houses of the patrician nobility now renascent, Aemilii and Fabii stood closely bo

married L. Nonius Asprenas, cos. suff. A.D. 6, of a family of the new nobility which can show highly eminent connexions at this

ng the return to power of Tiberius, along with descendants of the old nobility , like the patricians M. Aemilius Lepidus, P. Corn

to another generation, but not their own sons the young men inherited nobility , that was enough. Caution, abetted by the memory

ius, mostly with interlocking matrimonial ties, houses of the ancient nobility like the Calpurnii and the numerous branches and

the uncle of Seianus, Dalmatia by P. Cornelius Dolabella, of ancient nobility . 5 The competent and sturdy novus homo C. Poppaeu

derives his names and examples from the descendants of the Republican nobility but not the living. Few of them, indeed, survived

r power and their spirit. The satirist did not dare to deride the new nobility , the oligarchy of government in his own day. He m

men, the brave and the loyal, had perished. Not a mere faction of the nobility had been defeated, but a whole class. The contest

and Claudii, the Domitii, a dynastic plebeian house of fairly recent nobility , would yet, to the contemporaries of Pompeius, ha

of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, the Augustan as well as the Republican nobility seemed to have run its course. Yet the succeedi

cy by the production of numerous offspring. Certain stocks of the new nobility , however, were prudent and tenacious enough to en

Hispania Citerior (Tarraconensis), to a descendant of the Republican nobility and a loyal servant of the government, Ser. Sulpi

the descendant of Ahenobarbus, of Antonius, of Augustus. Vespasian’s nobility was his own creation. The Flavians had cause to b

Julio-Claudians has all but exhausted the Republican and the Augustan nobility , there are still on the Fasti three Republican no

n old man and a personal friend of Vespasian. 1 Thenceforward a newer nobility , sons or grandsons of Roman knights for the most

t especial store by the patriciate. The last renascence of the oldest nobility of Rome revealed its inner falsity in the charact

45 B.C.), 68 f., 95. Fabius Persicus, Paullus (cos. A.D. 34), 496; nobility and vices of, 374, 511. Fabius Quintilianus, M.,

Polla, wife of L. Volusius Saturninus, 424. Nonii Asprenates, of new nobility , 424. Nonius Asprenas, L. (cos. suff. 36 B.C.),