Talk:Gellia gens

Doubts

Where did the entry for "Lucius Gellius Poplicola, consul suffectus in AD 40" come from? "Consular Fasti" means nothing: no such document exists. I've not found any trace of a consular Gellius around then, & our records for both suffect & ordinary consuls are fairly complete for the first century. -- llywrch (talk) 05:16, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

I still don't have a copy of "The Fasti for the Reign of Gaius" to review, but I doubt it'd help in this case. I think this Gellius is a phantom. The Gellii in DGRBM are cited to Drumann, with a notation of "Fasti" for this one; no other information apart from his office, i.e. everything known about him was epigraphic. Drumann's article on the Gellii doesn't mention him. In the "Chronological Tables of Roman History", he's listed as consul suffectus from the Ides of January with Marcus Cocceius Nerva, immediately following Caligula as sole consul, followed by (in parentheses, so presumably inferred, or a guess) Sextus Junius Celer and Sextus Nonius Quinctilianus on the Kalends of July. Now this listing of Fasti was made at a time when the nature and extent of the consular fasti was not nearly as well known as today, and no sharp distinction was made between the Capitolini, Ostienses, and other fragmentary lists—all which have been reconstructed over the decades since—hence the confusing citation to "consular fasti".

But reviewing the fasti now, it seems apparent that the pair of consuls, Lucius Gellius Poplicola and Marcus Cocceius Nerva, are actually duplicates of the ones from 36 BC (who also appear in the table, with the notation that they resigned, no date given, and a different pair of successors than is found in any year of the table we have in the List of Roman consuls). Looking at the transcription of the Fasti Capitolini, I note that 37 and 36, in fragmentary condition, very badly damaged, are the only surviving years between 43 and 26, and that almost all of 36 is obliterated or illegible. In our list we have Lucius Nonius Asprenas as suffectus for 36 BC, and in AD 38—not 40—Servius Asinius Celer and Sextus Nonius Quinctilianus. So I think what we have is an older reconstruction of the Fasti, in which Nonius Asprenas, the consul of 36 BC, has been mistaken for Nonius Quinctilianus, the consul of AD 38—at that time assigned to 40—and Asprenas' predecessors, who were in office in January, assumed to have been the predecessors of Quinctilianus and his colleague, whose name was read as "Se[x. Ju]nius Celer" rather than "Se[r. Asi]nius Celer". In other words, the fragment of the Fasti Capitolini for 36 BC was formerly thought to be the beginning of AD 40—which in turn has been revised to 38.

This being the case, I guess I can remove this Gellius from the article, and I'll footnote the phantom under the real consul. P Aculeius (talk) 14:49, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

Cognomen Publi-/Poplicola and formatting

I've recently come across this piece, "The Clever and the Wise: Two Roman cognomina in context", BICS, vol. 35, issue supplement 51 (1988), pp. 6–12, doi:10.1111/j.2041-5370.1988.tb02004.x, JSTOR 43768532, which puts forward the idea that the common use of "Publicola" in the name of Lucius Gellius cos. 72 BC, is incorrect, and that it should only be used for the cos. 36, the former's apparently adoptive son. Badian, the author, reiterates this on the same man's entry in the Oxford Classical Dictionary, where he is displayed simply as "Lucius Gellius", followed with a supplementary note explicitly reinforcing the point that he was not called Poplicola. Assuming this forms sufficient basis to modify the entry of the cos. 72 accordingly in this page, should the Gellii Poplicolae section be maintained with its 3 remaining members, or should it be removed and its members moved to the main list with the other Gellii? Avis11 (talk) 22:51, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

I think a footnote summarising Badian's argument is enough in the list. Badian also says that the cognomen comes from the adoption of the consul of 36 by that of 72. The former was born a Valerius Maximus, for whom his natural father revived the antique cognomen, which was retained once he became a Gellius. This should be in both the gens (#Branches and cognomina) and individual articles. T8612 (talk) 02:03, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

Just skimming the available sources (and without reading Badian), this sounds like it may be Badian's theory. The surname Poplicola is given for the consul of 72 BC in the Chronography of 354, and is followed not only by the DGRBM, but by PW and Broughton. So the first question I have is, apart from the surname, what makes Badian think that the consul of 36 was adopted? If he's basing this idea solely on the surname, then a footnote is adequate. On the other hand, if there's some hard evidence, then perhaps the surname applied to the consul of 72 is a mistake—albeit a very, very old one. P Aculeius (talk) 05:50, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

He specifically argues that the modern sources' use of the cognomen is incorrect. I don't have full access to the article myself, but was able to view fragments due to a loophole in Google search. The argument goes as follows. The L. Poplicola cos. 36 is known to have been a brother of Marcus Valerius Messalla Corvinus, and, since "Poplicola" was originally a cognomen of the Valeria gens, then it follows that the younger Gellius, being a relative of the Valerii, must have adopted it, in a time when reviving old cognomina was indeed a common thing. There is apparently no evidence in any other ancient source that the cos. 72 had the cognomen Poplicola – which makes only too much sense since he was not himself related to any Valerius, unlike his son, whom Badian apparently argues was adopted. Badian considers the entry in the fasti, which many modern writers appear to have followed, to have been either a mistake or a forgery. Avis11 (talk) 14:30, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

Note that this also appears in the OCD, so it's not just some fringe theory. Him being adopted is what Badian concludes in the article, and the OCD also says that the elder Gellius spent his final years in conflict with his adoptive son. At first glance I am unsure how to reconcile this with the older sources in this wikipedia page saying that Poplicola and Corvinus were half-brothers, their mother being one (Valeria?) "Polla", but the argument for the cognomen appears convincing. It is worth noting that the age difference between the coss. 72 and 36 must have been unusually high for the latter to be a biological son of the former. Avis11 (talk) 14:43, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

I'm convinced, but a lot of the earlier literature use this cognomen, so readers might expect to find it here. I wouldn't have removed his cognomen from his article for this reason. T8612 (talk) 15:22, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

It seems logical enough to footnote, but it's still based on circumstantial evidence, so I'm not ready to remove the cognomen just yet. And there's nothing particularly probative about a gap of thirty-six years between a father and son holding the consulship—plenty of men, then as now, were capable of fathering children at thirty-six years of age or later, especially if they were married twice. Not to mention that not everyone attained the consulship at the age of forty-two; some men simply weren't distinguished enough until later in their careers, or may simply have been behind too many other candidates in terms of priority (doubtless this was even more of a factor in imperial times; perhaps not as much in 36, but the unsettled period between 44 and 30 surely resulted in some careers being advanced rapidly, while others were delayed for various reasons). P Aculeius (talk) 15:36, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

I would still remove the cognomen of the cos. 72, while perhaps keeping him in the Gellii Poplicolae category. The age gap between the two L. Gellii was very large: the elder was born no later than 136 (he held the consulship very late), which means he must've been some 60 years older than the supposed son. T.P. Wiseman actually argued that the cos. 72 was a grandfather of the cos. 36. To my knowledge this has received less support in scholarship than Badian's theory, but it goes on to show that the relationship between the two men is not even certainly attested. I wouldn't call it circumstantial evidence since Badian is arguing for a negative here, and evidence for the affirmative is certainly lacking. The cognomen shouldn't be kept for the elder when the main evidence for it boils down to a probably corrupt and falsified entry in a non-contemporary consular list. More recent sources (example), including the OCD itself, moreover, have agreed with this. An explanatory footnote is certainly appropriate, even necessary, but I wouldn't keep the surname there, no more than Crassus's page should be called "Marcus Licinius Crassus Dives" with a note beside the name explaining how he probably wasn't called 'Dives". Avis11 (talk) 16:14, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

Not even going to dive into the matter of Crassus at this stage—it's far removed from this discussion. The entry in the Chronography of 354 can be either corrupt or falsified, but presumably not both; no source is cited for it being "falsified", and it certainly isn't "corrupt", in the sense that it's perfectly clear what it means with respect to the consul of 72 BC. It may be erroneous, which is what Badian argues, but that's neither the same as "corrupt" nor "falsified". As for its being "non-contemporary", that description could be made of all consular lists, since they were intended as annals of past consuls—and none date from as early as 72 BC. Badian makes a persuasive argument, but it's his argument in OCD, since he wrote the article—it's not independent confirmation of his opinion.

Wiseman may also be correct, and this can be noted—but we don't have clear evidence, apart from chronology, and this is very murky. Do we have any evidence of how old the younger Gellius was in 36 BC? If he was 42, and born about 78 BC, then his father would have been at least 58, perhaps 60, as you suggest. But as you also note, the elder Gellius must have been at least 64 when he held the consulship, so we can't really presume that the younger Gellius was born around 78 simply because he was consul in 36—that's simply the latest probable date.

Making the younger Gellius a grandson of the elder presents its own difficulties: we have no evidence that the elder Gellius had a son who married a Valeria, or a daughter who married Marcus Valerius Messalla Niger; Niger's article, citing Syme, says that his wife was named "Polla". Of course, Niger could have been married twice, or his wife might have been Paulla Gellia, or Gellia Paulla (not really a meaningful distinction); but there's no evidence for any of these hypotheses. And we might bear in mind that Cato Salonianus was born when his father was eighty—so without having a good idea how old the younger Gellius was, it's all guesswork. P Aculeius (talk) 17:14, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

I think you're straying too far off the point here, which is simply to have the cos. 72 displayed as "Lucius Gellius" rather than "Lucius Gellius Publicola". I put forward those arguments about the age gap and his blood relationships because you yourself asked; discussing the merit of all these arguments is all technically original research. Badian is not the only one to endorse this idea. Examples include A Commentary on Cicero, De Legibus (2004) and L'onomastica dell'Italia antica, ed. P. Poccetti (2009). DGRBM, Drumann and RE are all out of date on this subject, but, since they are not hidden behind an internet paywall, many will likely use them to edit Wikipedia rather than more recent sources. The article on the consul of 72 only uses 19th—early 20th-century sources, plus Broughton (all of which can be obtained for free on the internet), and many articles on Roman gentes started out as copies of their respective DGRBM entries, to be updated in due time.

The example of Crassus was just an analogy. The former consensus of the DGRBM, Drumann and RE (ws) was unmade in the 1970s when it was demonstrated that he wasn't called Dives. Likewise, "Publicola" being present in those works shouldn't automatically mean we introduce it into wikipedia, since recent scholarship contests this (the arguments of Marshall for Crassus and Badian for Gellius are not dissimilar).

TLDR – The final argument is simply: (1) there are a number of modern sources, not just Badian, which agree that Gellius was likely not surnamed "Poplicola", in opposition to older and somewhat out-of-date sources; (2) and, since it's at best uncertain that he was called Publicola, then let him be displayed in the list as "Lucius Gellius L. f. L. n." rather than "Lucius Gellius L. f. L. n. Poplicola", with the complementary footnote beside it. That's what this was all about at the start. Avis11 (talk) 19:36, 20 June 2020 (UTC)