[38] Cic. in Verr. i. 45, 115 “Minucius quidam mortuus est ante istum (Verrem) praetorem; ejus testamentum erat nullum. Lege hereditas ad gentem Minuciam veniebat”; de Leg. ii. 22, 55 “Jam tanta religio est sepulchrorum, ut extra sacra et gentem inferri fas negent esse; idque apud majores nostros A. Torquatus in gente Popilia judicavit.”
[39] The theory of the artificial origin of the gens is based on the symmetrical figures given by tradition. The full numbers of the early gentes are given as 300; these are symmetrically divided, ten into each of the thirty curiae, as the curiae are divided into the three original tribes. Hence Niebuhr (Hist. Rome i. p. 319) says, “The numerical scale of the gentes is an irrefragable proof that they were not more ancient than the constitution, but corporations formed by a legislator in harmony with the rest of his scheme.”
[40] Niebuhr op. cit. p. 333; from Laelius Felix (ap. Gell. xv. 27) “Cum ex generibus hominum suffragium feratur, curiata comitia esse” (genus because the assembly came to include Plebeians, some of whom had no gentes).
[41] Cic. ad Fam. ix. 21, 2.
[42] Momms. Staatsr. iii. p. 31.
[43] Cic. de Rep. ii. 20, 35 “(L. Tarquinius) duplicavit illum pristinum patrum numerum; et antiquos patres majorum gentium appellavit, quos priores sententiam rogabat; a se ascitos minorum”; Liv. i. 35 “(Tarquinius) centum in patres legit; qui deinde minorum gentium sunt appellati.”
[44] p. 3.
[45] The gentes minores are sometimes identified with the gentes of the last admitted of these tribes, the Luceres (Ortolan Hist. of Roman Law i. § 33).
[46] Momms. Hist. of Rome bk. i. ch. v.
[47] Liv. i. 30; Dionys. iii. 29.