Talk:Junia gens

message: The whole idea that Lucius Brutus & Marcus Brutus were not related is rather circular.  The *only* evidence that the former was a patrician is that he is said to have been consul.  But it is not at all clear that the consulship was limited to patricians only at that early date (see the article on "Roman Consul", which mentions that some 30% of the early consuls were plebeian).
Cf. The Oxford Classical Dictionary s.v. Iunius Brutus, Lucius: "The plebeian status of the later Iunii has raised doubts about the authenticity of his [sc. Lucius Brutus'] consulship or the alleged early patrician monopoly of the office."
So there is no reason to rule out the idea that the two were, in fact, related as the Romans thought. 66.31.47.139 02:56, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Patrician? 

message: An anonymous editor has removed the clause from the introductory paragraph stating that most members of the Junia gens in the later Republic were Plebeians.  I would like to revert this edit, but in case the editor would like to make a case for keeping or modifying it instead, I thought it might be taken up here.
I can see why the editor might have felt it redundant; if the gens was "originally" patrician, that seems to imply that its later members were plebeian.  But I can certainly see people arriving at this page without knowing that, and this seems to be the most logical place for a link to plebeian, juxtaposed with the link to patrician where this question is originally raised.  I note that no links to plebeian were added elsewhere in the article, nor any to Roman Republic, which was also removed in this edit.
I also point out that, while most references state either that the gens was plebeian, or that it was plebeian in later times, the Junii Silani appear to have been patricians.  I was somewhat surprised to discover this while working on this article, but I ran across at least two or three different references to them that made clear that this family was patrician, and while I can't remember them all off the top of my head, one of them was appointed flamen, and his office was not open to the plebeians.  As the article explains further down, this may have come about because some, or perhaps all but the earliest Silani were descendants of one of the Manlii Torquati, who had been adopted into the Junia gens.  It looks as if his descendants were reckoned patricians, even though they bore the name Junius.
Since the Junii Silani were not plebeian, the assertion that the later Junii were plebeian needs to be qualified, and I don't think that can be done by inference alone.  Without the clause just deleted from the first paragraph, the implication is that none of the later Junii were patricians, and the later statement to the contrary appears to be inconsistent with the description of the gens in the first paragraph.
Thus, I think that the introductory paragraph is better with the language in question than without it; it qualifies what would otherwise be a false impression given by the preceding clause; it provides necessary links to two related subjects, and places them in the most logical position in the article; and it would make the paragraph easier to understand for readers unfamiliar with the distinction between patricians and plebeians.  P Aculeius (talk) 22:11, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposed reversion of last edit