Mamilia (gens) - Branches and Cognomina of The Gens

Branches and Cognomina of The Gens

The Mamilii were divided into three families, with the cognomina Limetanus, Turrinus, and Vitulus, of which the two latter were the most ancient and important. Limetanus is the only surname which occurs on coins.

Vitulus was a surname in both the Mamilia and Voconia gentes. Niebuhr supposes that Vitulus is merely another form of Italus, and remarks that we find in the same manner in the Mamilia gens the surname Turrinus; that is, Tyrrhenus, an Etruscan. "It was customary, as is proved by the oldest Roman Fasti, for the great houses to take distinguishing surnames from a people with whom they were connected by blood, or by the ties of public hospitality."

The ancients, however, connected the surname Vitulus with the Latin word signifying a "calf", which was depicted on a coin of one of the Voconii Vituli. Although the connection of Turrinus and Tyrrhenus is by no means impossible, or even unlikely, it could also have been derived from turris, "a tower". An ancient tower known as the Turris Mamilia stood in the Subura, and figured in a ritual battle between the residents of two neighborhoods at Rome for the head of the October Horse.