FLavius Valerius Constantinus, on Jan 8 2006, 03:52 PM, said:
Oh, I hate those things, I have never been able to comprehend that type of thing clearly. You mind explaining the color coding and positioning, Cate?
Sure. Once you decipher the coding of the relations, you'll find that stemmata can be quite valuable (and thanks Pertinax!)
First, the link for the
New and Improved "Kinsmen of Cato".
Colors represent different families--Yellow for the Servilii Caeponis, Red for the Junii, Green for the Livii Drusi, and Blue for the Porcii Catonis.
A double-circled line represents a marrage. Some people were married more than once (e.g., Brutus' mom Servilia was married to two different members of the Junii, and Cato's mom Livia was married first to her brother-in-law Q. Servilius Caepio and later to Cato's dad). [edit: some sources have it the other way: livia first married a cato, then a caepio. I think that version makes some sense given that Caepio hero-worshipped his brother Cato, which might suggest that Cato was an older brother.]
A black-circled line ending in an arrow represents a parent/child relation. In some cases, we don't know who the mother was, or I didn't have room on the chart to indicate the fact. In one case, this omission might be misleading, i.e., in the case of the two sons of Cato the Censor. His first son was born to Licinia; his second son to a MUCH younger woman, Salonia. (Cato the Censor was 80 when he married Salonia; much to the delight of her father, though we have no record of Salonia's thoughts on the match!)
In my stemmata, each unique name represents a unique person--thus, there really were EIGHT different people named M. Porcius Cato. The Cato who opposed Caesar is often known as Cato Uticensis to distinguish him from the others; however, many sources simply assume that the Cato in question is Cato Uticensis. Some stemmata, for space reasons, have the same person entered more than once (e.g., Syme's stemmata of the Cato family enters Cato's half-brother more than once but indicates the fact by providing dates of death).
As far as space permitted, I attempted to keep generations of people in the same row. This is particularly instructive in the case of Cato Uticensis' family. As orphans, he and his sister lived with their half-brothers and sisters (Caepio, Servilia, and Servilia).
In one case, I have a dotted line. That is because the relation between C. Porcius Cato (cos. 114) and C. Porcius Cato (triumvirate lackey, tr. 56) is assumed to be patrilineal, but we're not really positive. It is interesting, however, to note that M. and C. Porcius Cato were both sworn enemies and second cousins.
This post has been edited by M. Porcius Cato: 09 January 2006 - 03:44 AM
Add Reply
MultiQuote
