Branches of The Gens Valeria
The earliest branches of Poplicola, Potitus, and Volusus appear to be derived from Publius Valerius Poplicola, an early republican hero. The other branches appear only from the mid-4th century, starting with Corvus or Corvinus, apparently descended from another great Valerian consul. The Messalla or Messala branch, so prominent in imperial Rome, is a sub-branch of this. The origins of the Flaccus branch is less certain; the first consul by that name appears in 261 BC, but a Potitus had been nicknamed Flacus (with one "c") some decades earlier circa 331 BC. In late republican Rome, the branches of Messalla (or Messala) and Flaccus were the best-known and most influential.
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“There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root, and it may be that he who bestows the largest amount of time and money on the needy is doing the most by his mode of life to produce that misery which he strives in vain to relieve.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)