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Ara Pacis showing the imperial family of Augustus Gold glass portrait of husband and wife (Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Museo Sacro). The ancient Roman family was a complex social structure, based mainly on the nuclear family, but also included various combinations of other members, such as extended family members, household slaves, and freed slaves.
The gens (plural gentes) was a Roman family, of Italic or Etruscan origins, consisting of all those individuals who shared the same nomen and claimed descent from a common ancestor. It was an important social and legal structure in early Roman history .
The Roman family was one of the ways that the mos maiorum was passed along through the generations.. The mos maiorum (Classical Latin: [ˈmoːs majˈjoːrʊ̃]; "ancestral custom" [1] or "way of the ancestors"; pl.: mores, cf. English "mores"; maiorum is the genitive plural of "greater" or "elder") is the unwritten code from which the ancient Romans derived their social norms.
The emperors during the fifty-year period of the Crisis can be organised into eight families and six unrelated emperors, although no family held power for more than fifteen years. Maximinus I 173–238
Coin of Pescennius Niger, a Roman usurper who claimed imperial power AD 193–194. Legend: IMP CAES C PESC NIGER IVST AVG. While the imperial government of the Roman Empire was rarely called into question during its five centuries in the west and fifteen centuries in the east, individual emperors often faced unending challenges in the form of usurpation and perpetual civil wars. [30]
In Roman family law, the term "Patria potestas" (Latin: “power of a father”) refers to this concept. [3] He held legal privilege over the property of the familia , and varying levels of authority over his dependents: these included his wife and children , certain other relatives through blood or adoption, clients , freedmen and slaves.
The patricians in ancient Rome were of the same status as aristocrats in Greek society. [9] Being of the noble class meant that patricians were able to participate in government and politics, while the plebeians could not. This privilege was important in ancient Roman history and eventually caused a large divide between the two classes.
The Julio-Claudian dynasty was the first dynasty of Roman emperors.All emperors of that dynasty descended from Julii Caesares and/or from Claudii.Marriages between descendants of Sextus Julius Caesar and Claudii had occurred from the late stages of the Roman Republic, but the intertwined Julio-Claudian family tree resulted mostly from adoptions and marriages in Imperial Rome's first decades.