GENS, GENTILITAS, GENTILIS. APPUNTI SU LESSICO E ARCHEOLOGIA FUNERARIA NELLA VENETIA ROMANA

Abstract

The work addresses three Republican and early Imperial funerary inscriptions from Patavium where the
term gens appears to be used as the Latin equivalent for large familial groups typical of Celtic and Venetic
burial organization. After a careful review of all occurrences of gens, gentilitas, gentilis in Latin inscriptions
and a close comparison with other instances from Cisalpine Gaul, I will present my hypothesis for the
original location and use of the inscriptions, based on archeological comparanda drawn from other Venetic
necropoleis. Against the standard interpretation of gens as a synonym of collegium/sodalitas, I believe the
inscriptions can find a better explanation as burial markers intended to serve a hybrid society, still attached,
in the physical and ritual organization of their spaces, to old pre-Roman habits.