It is all too easy to tax the Roman nobility in the last epoch of its rule with vice and corruption, obscurantism and oppression. […] From time to time, families rise and fall: as Rome’s rule extends in Italy, the circle widens from which the nobility is recruited and renewed. […] Office conferred nobility; and the friendship and influence of the municipal aristocrat was largely solicited by Roman politicians. […] About the early admissions to power and nobility at Rome much will remain obscure and controversial. […] The governing oligarchy, not least the dynastic houses of the plebeian nobility, had been growing ever closer and more exclusive.