<i>Nobilitas</i> and <i>Novitas</i>

I. No Roman definition of nobilis or novus homo exists. Mommsen held that the nobiles comprised: ( a ) all patricians; ( b ) those descended from patricians who had effected a transitio ad plebem ; ( c ) those descended from plebeians who had held curule offices, viz. the offices of dictator, magister equitum , censor, consul, praetor, curule aedile. They were thus identical with the persons who had the ius imaginum. (On this footing Mommsen ought to have included plebeian aediles, at least for the post-Sullan era.) All others, including those who were the first of their lines to hold curule office, were novi. This theory has been generally abandoned in favour of Gelzer's; Afzelius argued that it corresponded to the conception of nobility in the second century, but not to that prevalent in Cicero's time. Yet it may after all be right.