The greatest of those families had earned or confirmed their title of nobility by command in war against the Samnites and the Carthaginians: some had maintained it since then, others had lapsed for a time. […] But there may have been others. […] Some versions of the legend put the immigration in the sixth year of the Republic, others in the regal period. […] Unable to restrain his grief, Caesar’s faithful friend Matius took a grim pleasure in the most gloomy reports; 4 some, like Balbus and Oppius, dissembled; others again were frankly willing to make the best of the new dispensation. […] Antonius, the dramatic writer Nucula, Caesennius Lento, and two others possibly Decidius Saxa and Cafo, Phil. 8, 26, cf.