Gens

In ancient Rome, a gens (/ˈɡɛns/ or /ˈdʒɛnz/), plural gentes, was a family, consisting of all those individuals who shared the same nomen and claimed descent from a common ancestor. A branch of a gens was called a stirps (plural stirpes). The gens was an important social structure at Rome and throughout Italy during the period of the Roman Republic. Much of an individual's social standing depended on the gens to which he belonged. Certain gentes were considered patrician, others plebeian, while some had both patrician and plebeian branches. The importance of membership in a gens declined considerably in imperial times.

Origin of the gens

The word gens is sometimes translated as "race" or "nation", meaning a people descended from a common ancestor (rather than sharing a common physical trait). It can also be translated as "clan" or "tribe", although the word tribus has a separate and distinct meaning in Roman culture. A gens could be as small as a single family, or could include hundreds of individuals. According to tradition, in 479 BC the Fabii alone were able to field a militia consisting of three hundred and six men of fighting age. The concept of the gens was not uniquely Roman, but was shared with communities throughout Italy, including those who spoke Italic languages such as Latin, Oscan, and Umbrian, as well as the Etruscans. All of these peoples were eventually absorbed into the sphere of Roman culture.

Gens (disambiguation)

A gens was a family in Ancient Rome in which all of the members typically bore the same nomen and claimed descent from a common ancestor.

Gens can also refer to:

Gens (behaviour)

In animal behaviour, a gens (pl. gentes) or host race is a host-specific lineage of a brood parasite species. Brood parasites such as cuckoos, which use multiple host species to raise their chicks, evolve different gentes, each one specific to its host species. This specialisation allows the parasites to lay eggs that mimic those of their hosts, which in turn reduces the chances of the eggs being rejected by the hosts.

The exact mechanisms of the evolution and maintenance of gens is still a matter of some research. However, it is believed that in common cuckoos, gens-specific properties are sex-linked and lie on the W chromosome of the female. Male cuckoos, which like all male birds have no W chromosome, are able to mate with females of any gens, and thereby maintain the cuckoo as one species. This is not the case in other brood parasites, such as cowbirds, in which both the male and female imprint on their preferred host. This leads to speciation, such as the indigo bird, which is suggested by the fact they have a more recent evolutionary origin than their hosts.