Resia gens


The gens Resia was an obscure plebeian family at ancient Rome. The Resii traced their ancestry to Fertor Resius, King of the Aequicoli, in the time of the Roman monarchy. However, few members of this gens are mentioned in history.

Origin

According to tradition, Fertor Resius was King of the Aequicoli, an Oscan-speaking people better known as the Aequi, a confederation of hill tribes whom together with the Volsci came into regular conflict with the nascent Roman Republic during the fifth century BC. An Old Latin inscription discovered on the Palatine Hill records that Resius taught the Roman people the ius fetiale, the law prescribing the manner in which an ambassador should approach another people to demand redress for various grievances, or deliver a formal declaration of war:
Fertr Resius, Rex Aequicolus, is preimus ius fetiale paravit inde p R discipleinam excepit.
Fertor Resius, King of the Aequicoli, first instituted the ius fetiale. From him the Roman people acquired the discipline.

Livy describes this procedure as it was first adopted by Ancus Marcius, the fourth King of Rome, in the latter part of the seventh century BC, and reports that the ius fetiale was adopted from the Aequicoli, although he does not name Resius. Dionysius discusses the institution of the fetiales and the ius fetiale under Numa Pompilius, the second King of Rome, and mentions the tradition that the law originated with the Aequicolae, together with an alternative tradition, mentioned by the historian Gnaeus Gellius, attributing the ius fetiale to the people of Ardea, but like Livy he does not name their king.

Praenomina

The legendary Fertor Resius bore an otherwise unknown praenomen, which some scholars have amended to Sertor, a known but archaic name; but the current consensus is that Fertor is a separate name. The Resii of historical times bear more conventional praenomina, of which the most frequent appear to have been Titus and Aulus. Other names used by the Resii include Gaius, Manius, and Marcus.

Branches and cognomina

There is no evidence that the Resii were ever divided into distinct families, and all of their surnames have the appearance of personal cognomina, such as Asper, rough, Aster, a star, Genialis, genial, and Severus, stern. Albanus would probably belong to a class of surnames derived from the town of the bearer's origin, perhaps indicating that his family had lived in the Alban Hills. Patruus, the surname of one of the Resii from Vicentia in Venetia and Histria, referred to a paternal uncle, and probably served to distinguish him from his nephew and namesake. A number of other surnames borne by freedmen would have been their original personal names, prior to their manumission.
Several women of this gens bore surnames derived from old praenomina, which served the same individualizing function, although placed after the gentilicium, such as Gaia, the feminine of Gaius; Paula, little; Prima, a name given to the eldest daughter in a family; and Rufa, red-haired. Victoria presumably refers to the goddess of the same name.

Members