Smith, William: A smaller dictionary of Greek and Roman antiquities (London, 1871)

NOBILES.

270

SOMEN.

no debtor shou'.d for the future be put in
chains.

NOBILES, NOBILITAS. In the early
periods of the Raman state the Patricians
were the Nobles as opposed to the Plebs.
In b. c. 366, the plebeians obtained the right
of being eligible to the consulship, and finally
they obtained access to all the curule magis-
tracies. Thus the two classes were put on
the same footing as to political capacity ; but
now a new order of nobility arose. The de-
scendants of plebeians who had filled curule
magistracies, formed a class called Nobiles or
men " known," who were so called by way
of distinction from " Ignobiles" or people
who were not known. The Nobiles had no
legal privileges as such; but they were bound
together by a common distinction derived
from a legal title and by a common interest;
and their common interest was to endeavour
to confine the election to all the high magis-
tracies to the members of their body, to the
Nobilitas. Thus the descendants of those
Plebeians who had won their way to distinc-
tion combined to exclude other Plebeians
from the distinction which their own ances-
tors had transmitted to them. The external
distinction of the Nobiles was the Jus Imagi-
num, a right or privilege which was appa-
rently established on usage only, and not on
any positive enactments. These Imagines
were figures with painted masks of wax,
made to resemble the person whom they
represented ; and they were placed in the
Atrium of the house, apparently in small
wooden receptacles or cases somewhat in the
form of temples. The Imagines were accom-
panied with the tituli or names of distinction
which the deceased had acquired ; and the
tituli were connected in some way by lines
or branches so as to exhibit the pedigree
(stemma) of the family. These Imagines
were generally enclosed in their cases, but
they were opened on festival days and other
great ceremonials, and crowned with bay
(laureatae) : they also formed part of a so-
lemn funeral procession. It seems probable
that the Roman Nobilitas, in the strict sense
of that term, and the Jus Imaginum, origi-
nated with the admission of the Plebeians to
the consulship b. c. 366. A plebeian who
first attained a Curule office was the founder
of his family's Nobilitas (princeps nobilitatis;
auctor generis). Such a person could have
no imagines of his ancestors; and he could
have none of his own, for such imagines of
a man were not made till after he was dead.
Such a person then was not nobilis in the
full sense of the term, nor yet was he igno-
bilis. He was called by the Romans a " no-
vus homo " or a new man; and his status or

condition was called Novitas. The term
novus homo was never applied to a Patrician,
The two most distinguished " novi homines"
were C. Marius and M. Tullius Cicero, both
natives of an Italian municipium. The Pa-
tricians would of course be jealous of the new
nobility; but this new nobility once formed
would easily unite with the old aristocracy
of Rome to keep the political power in their
hands, and to prevent more novi homines
from polluting this exclusive class. As early
as the second Punic war this new class, com-
pounded of Patricians or original aristocrats,
and Nobiles or newly-engrafted aristocrats,
was able to exclude novi homines from the
consulship. They maintained this power to
the end of the republican period, and the
consulship continued almost in the exclusive
possession of the Nobilitas. The Optimates
were the Nobilitas and the chief part ot tee
Equites, a rich middle class, and also ail
others whose support the Nobilitas and Equi-
tes could command, in fact all who were op-
posed to change that might affect the power
of the Nobilitas and the interests of those
whom the Nobilitas allied with themselves.
Optimates in this sense are opposed to Plebs,
to the mass of the people ; and Optimates is
a wider term than Nobilitas, inasmuch as it
would comprehend the Nobilitas and all who
adhered to them.

NOMEN (ovofia), a name. The Greeks
bore only one name, and it was one of the
especial rights of a father to choose the
names for his children, and to alter them if
he pleased. It was customary to give to the
eldest son the name of the grandfather on
his father's side ; and children usually re-
ceived their names on the tenth day aftei
their birth.—Originally every Roman citizen
belonged to a gens, and derived his name
[nomen or nomen gentiUcium) from his gens,
which nomen gentilicium generally terminated
in ius. Besides this, every Roman had a
name, called praenomen, which preceded the
nomen gentilicium, and which was peculiar
to him as an individual, e. g. Caias, Lucius,
Marcus, Cneius, Sextus, &c. This praeno-
men was at a later time given to boys on the
ninth day after their birth, and to girls on
the eighth day. This day was called dies
lustricus, dies nominum, or nominalia. The
praenomen given to a boy was in most cases
that of the father, but sometimes that of the
grandfather or great-grandfather. These
two names, a praenomen and a nomen genti-
licium, or simply nomen, were indispensable
to a Roman, and they were at the same time
sufficient to designate him ; hence the nu-
merous instances of Romans being designated
only by these two names, even in cases where