Fall of Rome’s ruling families

QUESTION Are any of the original patrician families still resident in Rome?

According to 1st-century Bc historian Livy, the first 100 men appointed as senators by rome’s co-founder romulus were known as fathers (patres in Latin) and the descendants of those men became the patrician class.

They were the ruling elite of the early roman republic and kept some status through to the early Empire period.

Some of the most famous patrician families were Julia (Julius caesar), cornelia, claudia, Fabia and Valeria.

This old elite class was devastated in the bloody last generation of the republic and civil wars of the early Empire.

Patrician remained a title well into the imperial period, but the many purges under insecure emperors of the first and second century, such as caligula, claudius, nero and domitian, thinned their ranks even further.

Undoubtedly, some of those families survived — but they had lost their social status and political importance. Furthermore, under the republic, the romans didn’t practise primogeniture (where the first-born son becomes the heir). Each family spread its inheritance among its male — and sometimes female — heirs, thus diminishing old family fortunes and estates.

Practically, the familial links are too diluted and record keeping too weak to trace anyone back to the original patrician families.

Mark Kennett, Cambridge.

QUESTION Did the racehorse Shergar sire any foals before he was kidnapped? If so, did any go on to be winners?

FUrTHEr to the earlier answer, Authaal, sired by Shergar, did not win the 1986 doncaster St Leger. it was won by Moon Madness.

Authaal won the irish St Leger at the curragh in the same year. As the experts say, Authaal was by Shergar out of galletto (USA). David Urquhart, Burntisland, Fife.