The gens Alfia was a Roman

Ancient Rome

Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....

 family, known from the 1st century BC to the 1st century AD. The gens

Gens

In ancient Rome, a gens , plural gentes, referred to a family, consisting of all those individuals who shared the same nomen and claimed descent from a common ancestor. A branch of a gens was called a stirps . The gens was an important social structure at Rome and throughout Italy during the...

is known primarily from three individuals, including a statesman, a rhetorician, and a Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

 poet. The cognomina

Cognomen

The cognomen nōmen "name") was the third name of a citizen of Ancient Rome, under Roman naming conventions. The cognomen started as a nickname, but lost that purpose when it became hereditary. Hereditary cognomina were used to augment the second name in order to identify a particular branch within...

of this family are Flavus, which means "golden" or "yellow", and Avitus, derived from avus, "grandfather". Flavus appears to have been hereditary in the family, while Avitus seems always to have been a personal cognomen.

Members of the gens

• Gaius Alfius Flavus, tribune of the plebs
  Tribune
  Tribune was a title shared by elected officials in the Roman Republic. Tribunes had the power to convene the Plebeian Council and to act as its president, which also gave them the right to propose legislation before it. They were sacrosanct, in the sense that any assault on their person was...
  
   in 59, and praetor
  Praetor
  Praetor was a title granted by the government of Ancient Rome to men acting in one of two official capacities: the commander of an army, usually in the field, or the named commander before mustering the army; and an elected magistratus assigned varied duties...
  
   in 54 BC.
• Alfius Flavus, a youthful rhetorician in the time of Augustus
  Augustus
  Augustus ;23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14) is considered the first emperor of the Roman Empire, which he ruled alone from 27 BC until his death in 14 AD.The dates of his rule are contemporary dates; Augustus lived under two calendars, the Roman Republican until 45 BC, and the Julian...
  
   and Tiberius
  Tiberius
  Tiberius , was Roman Emperor from 14 AD to 37 AD. Tiberius was by birth a Claudian, son of Tiberius Claudius Nero and Livia Drusilla. His mother divorced Nero and married Augustus in 39 BC, making him a step-son of Octavian...
  
  , and a teacher of Lucius Annaeus Seneca
  Seneca the Elder
  Lucius or Marcus Annaeus Seneca, known as Seneca the Elder and Seneca the Rhetorician , was a Roman rhetorician and writer, born of a wealthy equestrian family of Cordoba, Hispania...
  
  .
• Alphius Avitus
  Alphius Avitus
  Alphius Avitus was a Latin poet believed to have flourished during the reigns of the Roman emperors Augustus and Tiberius, that is, the late 1st century BC or early 1st century AD...
  
  , a Latin poet thought to have lived during the same period as Alfius Flavus, and sometimes supposed to have been the same man.
• Alfius, a historian, whose work on the Trojan War
  Trojan War
  In Greek mythology, the Trojan War was waged against the city of Troy by the Achaeans after Paris of Troy took Helen from her husband Menelaus, the king of Sparta. The war is among the most important events in Greek mythology and was narrated in many works of Greek literature, including the Iliad...
  
   is mentioned by Sextus Pompeius Festus
  Sextus Pompeius Festus
  Sextus Pompeius Festus was a Roman grammarian, who probably flourished in the later 2nd century AD, perhaps at Narbo in Gaul.He made an epitome in 20 volumes of the encyclopedic treatise in many volumes De verborum significatu, of Verrius Flaccus, a celebrated grammarian who flourished in the...
  
  .