[938] Dio Cass. xxxvii. 51. 1: Καὶ πρὸς τὰ τοῦ πλήθους δικαιώματα, ἐς αὐτόν σφων τὸν σύλλογον ἐσελθὼν, μετέστη; Cic. Att. i. 18. 4: “C. Herennius ... tribunus pl. ... ad plebem P. Clodium traducit.” Cicero’s following statement (“Idemque fert, ut universus populus in campo Martio suffragium de re Clodi ferat”) signifies that Herennius was proposing to bring the question not before the centuries, as Drumann-Gröbe, Gesch. Roms, ii. 188, n. 3, imagines, for a tribune had no means of doing so, but before the thirty-five tribes, who were the universus populus (Cic. Leg. Agr. ii. 7. 16 f.) in contrast with the curiate comitia represented by thirty lictors; cf. p. 129 f.
[939] The falsification of pedigrees by plebeian families to prove descent from patrician ancestors of the same name is sufficient evidence that the name was retained through the transition; cf. Lange, Kleine Schriften, ii. 7 f. Were not the sacra retained, the transition of an entire gens would mean the destruction of its old religion and the creation of a new one—which is impossible. For this reason it appears that the detestatio sacrorum did not apply to such cases of transition.
[940] Lange, ibid. ii. 19.
[941] The fact that he promulgated a bill of the same tenor as that of Herennius, even if it was merely for the sake of appearance, as Cicero, Att. i. 18. 5, alleges, favors the latter view.
[942] Cic. Att. i. 19. 5.
[943] Dio Cass. xxxvii. 51. 2; xxxviii. 12. 1 f.; Cic. Dom. 13. 35; 29. 77.
[944] Cic. Dom. 14. 37: “Nam adoptatum emancipari statim, ne sit eius filius qui adoptarit”; 13. 35: “Tu (Clodi) neque Fonteius es, qui esse debebas, neque patris heres neque amissis sacris paternis in haec adoptiva venisti.” In Har. Resp. 27. 57 (“Iste parentum nomen, sacra, memoriam, gentem Fonteiano nomine obruit”) Cicero does not say that Clodius assumed the gentile name of Fonteius, but rather that he used this name as a means of destroying the name, sacra, etc. of his parents; and in fact he continued to be called Clodius; cf. Dio Cass. xxxix. 23. 2 (official use). He claimed still to belong to the Clodian gens rather than to the Fonteian (Cic. Dom. 44. 116), whereas Cicero, looking upon the emancipation as a sham, insists that he was a Fonteian.
[945] That he retained the Claudian imagines is implied in Cic. Mil. 13. 33; 32. 86. He must therefore have kept the rest of the sacra.
[946] Lange, Kleine Schriften, ii. 23 ff. Cicero aims to bring the greatest possible confusion into the case by representing Clodius as having given up his native religion without receiving that of Fonteius, as being a gentilis of the Claudii though he had left the Claudian gens, etc.; Dom. 13. 35; 49. 127.
[947] This double act is most clearly stated by Livy iv. 4. 7: “Nobilitatem istam vestram ... non genere nec sanguine sed per coöptationem in patres habetis ... post reges exactos iussu populi”; p. 17, n. 5; cf. Dion. Hal. v. 40. 5: Ἡ βουλὴ καὶ ὁ δῆμος εἴς τε τοὺς πατρικίους αὐτὸν (Appius Claudius) ἐνέγραψε. This passage shows that Dionysius regards the process as an act of the people and of the senate, though he does not speak of the latter as coöptation. In the case of Appius Claudius Livy, ii. 16. 5, says simply that he was enrolled among the patres (“inter patres lectus”), and in like manner Suetonius, Tib. i, states that the patrician gens Claudia was coöpted into the class of patrician gentes.