Noble families determined the history of the Republic, giving their names to its epochs. […] Of the forces that lay behind or beyond it, next to the noble families the knights were the most important. […] For the kinship between these two families, above, p. 44, n. 1. […] The earliest new families to reach the consulate are plainly immigrant. […] Like the families proscribed by Sulla, regions where Marian influence was strong furnished partisans.