THE ANCESTOR 99 the plebeian Popilii.^ In later times the confusion became worse confounded. The Claudii had attached to them several dependent stirpes of servile origin, amongst which was that of the Claudii Marcelli, and Cicero^ refers to a dispute which sprang up over the property of the intestate son of a lihertus or freedman of the Marcelli, which the Claudii claimed as belonging to them by the gentile rights. Besides the plebeian families contained in patrician gentes^ and the families of clients and freedmen linked to the latter and bearing their name, there were undoubtedly also plebeian gentes^ having like the patricians sacra and patria potestas. These were of free origin, being descended from the Latins removed from Alba and other con- quered towns in the seventh century before Christ. The law of inheritance, as laid down in the Twelve Tables, must have made it necessary at an early period to obtain a legal definition of the term gentilis, Quintus Mucius Scaevola, known as Pontifex, who died in B.C. 82, was the earliest Roman jurist who attempted to systematize the jus civile^ which he did in a work of eighteen books. He defines gentiles as ' free- men sprung from freemen, of whose ancestors no one served in bondage.'^ Cicero in his 'Topics^ gives a fuller explanation of the word. ' Those are gentiles^ he writes, ' who have the same name in common. That is not enough. Who are born of free parents. Not even that is enough. Of whose ances- tors no one has served in bondage. There remains to be said, that they have not been deprived of the citizenship. This per- haps is sufficient ; for I do not see that Scaevola Pontifex added anything to this definition.'^ Some writers have doubted whether the medieval ^ gentil ' comes from the classical gentilis^ and have suggested that it may more probably be derived from a barbarous use of the word in later times ; for after the introduction of Christianity gentilis came to mean a gentile or foreigner, and was applied by the Romans to the uncivilized tribes which threatened to over- whelm the empire. There is a law of Valentinian and Valens, 1 Cicero in Verr. 45, 115 ; de Leg. ii. 25, 55. ^ de Orat. i. 39, 176. 3 Ingenues ab ingenuis oriundos, quorum majorum nemo servitutem serviit.
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^ Itemque, ut illud ; Gentiles sunt, qui inter se eodem nomine sunt. Non est satis. Qui ab ingenuis oriundi sunt. Ne id quidem satis est. Quorum majorum nemo servitutem servivit. Abest etiam nunc, qui capite non sunt diminuti. Hoc fertasse satis est. Nihil enim video Scaevolam Pontificem ad hanc definitionem addidisse.
