GENTILES. - Those of the same gens were called gentiles, and those of the same family, agnati. The term gentiles, says Eckhel, was applied not only to those who belonged to the same gens, but also to those who bore only the same name. Cicero tells us - "They are called gentiles who share the same name." He was, therefore, justified in saying on another occasion, "Pherecydes the Syrian was the first to make the observation, that the minds of men were immortal; and he was one of very remote age, as he lived during the reign of my gentilis (namesake)" - i.e. Servius Tullius; between whom, however, and Cicero there was no point of connexion besides the similarity of name. Festus too gives the same account - "The term gentiles is applied, both to hime who is descended from the same stock, and to him who is called by the same name; witness the expression of Cincius - "They are my gentiles who bear my name." Consequently, he who was connected with a certain lineage by name, might easily appear, in the eyes of the interested, to be allied also by blood. They who oppose their own conjectures to the authority of Dionysius, tell us, for example, that the latter Junii passed over for the patrician to the plebeian ranks. It is not uninteresting to call to mind, that in the earliest period of the commonwealth the same impostion was practised by a certain L. Junius of plebeian origin and ignoble station who when the people retired to Mons Sacer, in order the more effectually to direct their vengeance against the Patres, assumed the cognomen of Brutus, and was thereupon chosen the first tribune of the people. See Doctr. vi. 20