in Roman Antiquity, a clan, embracing several families, whose bond of alliance was a common name and certain religious rites performed in common. The Gens Cornelia, for instance, comprised the families of the Lentuli, Cethegii, Scipiones, and many others. Persons of the same gens were called Gentiles, while those of the same family were designated Agnati. At first patricians only were considered to have a gens; but after the plebeians obtained the right of intermarriage with the patricians, and access to the honours of the state, they likewise received the rights of gentes. Hence there were both patrician and plebeian gentes; and sometimes in the same gens there were both patrician and plebeian families. (See Niebuhr's Röm. Gesch., vol. i., p. 339; Adam's Roman Antiquities; Freund's Lexicon, &c.)