Meaning of gentilician | Babel Free

Definitions

Synonym of gentilicial.

Examples

“There is no doubt that the Potitii worshipped Hercules according to Greek rites, as the Nautii did Minerva. These rites, however, had nothing of a national character about them, they were purely gentilician.”

“Once it had become inevitable to proceed on the lines of practically music States, that is, of States built on high-strung individuals, and not on organisations such as a tribe, a clan, a gens, a nation; nor on the basis of an indefinite hunger for more land; once this, the central and most essential trait of the Greeks, had become evident as well as imperative, the Greeks, while not entirely undoing the archaic remains of gentilician institutions, yet so reduced and impoverished them as to make them practically unimportant.”

“In this instance, however, the prenominal abbreviation as well as the gentilician name is given; the House of the Treasure is also the House of Quintus Fulvius.”

“Volsinii offers both Etruscan and Latin names in almost equal measure: this early Etrsucan mix with the Latin element may be an influence from the neighboring areas (cfr. Pompeii, perhaps from Interamna Nahars), Rusellae (Vicirii) demonstrates very well the effects of the Augustan colony, while at Caere the gentilician names certainly attributable to the city (the Egnatii and Sanquinii are uncertain attributions) provide a picture of conspicuous local solidarity.”

“Sara Aleshire saw allotment from a preexisting short list as the primary means of filling gentilician priesthoods at Athens from the fifth century to the last quarter of the first century b.c.[…]The old, inherited, lifelong priesthoods, associated with the gentilician class, were typified by the priesthood of Athena Polias as held by Lysimache.”

“It is a widely accepted idea that archaic Greek elites consisted of ‘aristocrats’ who ruled by hereditary right and enjoyed a life of leisure thanks to their riches. It is said that in the archaic age only these ‘aristocrats’ possessed full citizenship-rights, allowing them to rule their cities. Their leading position was jealously guarded by means of a gentilician social structure, until the lower social ranks, the dēmos, challenged their right to control every political office and the whole process of decision-making.”

“This change meant the gentes needed larger armies that drew on the urban population, which would have enabled the comitia curiata to assert that their sanction and the conferral of imperium was necessary to authorize the leader of a gentilician army to recruit large numbers of soldiers from the city.”

CEFR level