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Cornelius (fem. Cornelia
Cornelia

The name Cornelia is the feminine form of the name Cornelius. People, places and things named Cornelia include:...
, masc. plural Cornelii) was the nomen of the patrician
Patrician

The term "patrician" originally referred to a group of elitism citizens in ancient Rome, including both their natural and adopted members. In the late Roman empire, the class was broadened to include high council officials, and after the fall of the Western Empire became a term for Byzantine Imperial governors in the West....
 gens Cornelia (or Cornelia gens), one of the most important gentes
Gens

In ancient Rome, a gens was a clan, caste, or group of families, that shared a common name and a belief in a common ancestor. In the Roman naming convention, the second name was the name of the gens to which the person belonged....
, or families, of Ancient Rome
Ancient Rome

Ancient Rome was a civilization that grew out of a small agricultural community founded on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 10th century BC....
. The origins of the family, or clan, are unknown; however, the nomina of the clans, which are names of noble individuals of only one name, date to the Roman kingdom
Roman Kingdom

The Roman Kingdom was the monarchy government of the city of Rome and its territories. Little is certain about the history of the Roman Kingdom, as no written records from that time survive, and the histories about it were written during the Roman Republic and Roman Empire and are largely based on legend....
. The monarch, Servius Tullius
Servius Tullius

Servius Tullius was the sixth legendary Roman king of ancient Rome and the second king of the Etruria dynasty. The traditional dates of his reign are 578-535 BC....
, is said to have utilized the services of the priest of Diana
Diana (mythology)

In Roman mythology, Diana was the goddess of the hunting, being associated with wild animals and woodland, and also of the moon. In literature she was the Greek deities and their Roman and Etruscan counterparts of the Greek mythology Artemis, though in Cult she was Italy, not Greek, in origin....
, Cornelius, in acquiring and sacrificing to the Roman people a cow of prodigious horns (cornua), which long stood in the temple of the godess.

The first known consulship of any Cornelius was that of Servius Cornelius who served with Quintus Fabius in 485 BC, only twenty-five years after the founding of the republic.






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Cornelius (fem. Cornelia
Cornelia

The name Cornelia is the feminine form of the name Cornelius. People, places and things named Cornelia include:...
, masc. plural Cornelii) was the nomen of the patrician
Patrician

The term "patrician" originally referred to a group of elitism citizens in ancient Rome, including both their natural and adopted members. In the late Roman empire, the class was broadened to include high council officials, and after the fall of the Western Empire became a term for Byzantine Imperial governors in the West....
 gens Cornelia (or Cornelia gens), one of the most important gentes
Gens

In ancient Rome, a gens was a clan, caste, or group of families, that shared a common name and a belief in a common ancestor. In the Roman naming convention, the second name was the name of the gens to which the person belonged....
, or families, of Ancient Rome
Ancient Rome

Ancient Rome was a civilization that grew out of a small agricultural community founded on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 10th century BC....
. The origins of the family, or clan, are unknown; however, the nomina of the clans, which are names of noble individuals of only one name, date to the Roman kingdom
Roman Kingdom

The Roman Kingdom was the monarchy government of the city of Rome and its territories. Little is certain about the history of the Roman Kingdom, as no written records from that time survive, and the histories about it were written during the Roman Republic and Roman Empire and are largely based on legend....
. The monarch, Servius Tullius
Servius Tullius

Servius Tullius was the sixth legendary Roman king of ancient Rome and the second king of the Etruria dynasty. The traditional dates of his reign are 578-535 BC....
, is said to have utilized the services of the priest of Diana
Diana (mythology)

In Roman mythology, Diana was the goddess of the hunting, being associated with wild animals and woodland, and also of the moon. In literature she was the Greek deities and their Roman and Etruscan counterparts of the Greek mythology Artemis, though in Cult she was Italy, not Greek, in origin....
, Cornelius, in acquiring and sacrificing to the Roman people a cow of prodigious horns (cornua), which long stood in the temple of the godess.

The first known consulship of any Cornelius was that of Servius Cornelius who served with Quintus Fabius in 485 BC, only twenty-five years after the founding of the republic. If Livy's persistent use of only two names is an accurate representation of the society of the period, no branches of the clans cited, including the Cornelii, had yet been formally recognized. In that year the trial of the former consul, Spurius Cassius
Spurius Cassius Vecellinus

Spurius Cassius Vecellinus was an early consul of the Roman Republic. Recorded in the fasti as consul in 502, 493, and 486 BC, his last consulship, with Proculus Verginius Tricostus Rutilus, is believed to have actually occurred in 480 BC, the year in which the Battle of Salamis took place in Ancient Greece, and thus provides a chronological...
, for treason for his proposed land distribution laws during his consulship and subsequent execution of the man and pulling down of his house affirmed the expectations and limits for consuls.

The clan maintained its position as important contributor to the highest offices of the republic, and began to contest for consulships with the Fabii
Fabius

The family name "Fabius" was the nomen of the gens Fabia of ancient Rome, that derived from the Latin faba for the Vicia faba, an important food crop in the Roman Empire....
 and the Valerii
Valerius

Valerius originally was a Rome nomen of the gens Valeria, one of the oldest patrician families of the city. The name was in use throughout Roman history....
 from the 3rd century BC. Over thirty percent of all consulships were held by men from this gens; several great commanders also came from this prominent family.

Possible Latin forms include, in the nominative:
  • Cornelius, male singular
  • Cornelia
    Cornelia

    The name Cornelia is the feminine form of the name Cornelius. People, places and things named Cornelia include:...
    , female singular; also used as a woman's name today.
  • Cornelii, male plural
  • Cornelian
    Cornelian

    Cornelian is a red variety of chalcedony, which is cryptocrystalline quartz. Its red colour is due to the presence of iron impurities in the form of iron oxide or hematite....
    us    , male adoptive for a Cornelius adopted into another gens.


Notable branches