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The members of a clan are to one another either agnati or gentiles. In many cases the difference of nomenclature was based merely on the degree of certainty in the relationship. They were agnati when the common descent could be traced through all its stages; they were gentiles when the common descent was only an imagined fact, based on the possession of a common name. As a rule agnati are also gentiles; but there might be groups of agnates who could never be gentiles—groups, that is, of proved relationship through the male line, who could not, for reasons which we shall soon specify, form a gens.

If we believe that the Roman Patriciate represented those who alone possessed the legal status of heads of families (patres)[33]—since, the familia being the unit of the clan, the rights of a clan-member (gentilis) imply the position of a paterfamilias—it follows that the Roman gentes were, as they are represented by tradition, originally exclusively patrician, and that the terms gentilis, gentilitas implied a perfect equality of status among the only true members of the state.