The gens Calvisia 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, which first rose to prominence during the final century of the Republic

Roman Republic

The Roman Republic was the period of the ancient Roman civilization where the government operated as a republic. It began with the overthrow of the Roman monarchy, traditionally dated around 508 BC, and its replacement by a government headed by two consuls, elected annually by the citizens and...

, and remained influential well into imperial times

Roman Empire

The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....

. The first of 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...

to obtain the consulship

Roman consul

A consul served in the highest elected political office of the Roman Republic.Each year, two consuls were elected together, to serve for a one-year term. Each consul was given veto power over his colleague and the officials would alternate each month...

 was Gaius Calvisius Sabinus in 39 BC. During the later empire, the name Calvisius is sometimes found as a cognomen

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...

.

Origin of the gens

The nomen

Roman naming conventions

By the Republican era and throughout the Imperial era, a name in ancient Rome for a male citizen consisted of three parts : praenomen , nomen and cognomen...

 Calvisius is probably based on the 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...

 adjective calvus, meaning "bald". Both Calvus and Calvinus were common Roman surnames.

Branches and cognomina of the gens

The only family of the Calvisii during the Republic and early imperial times bore the surname Sabinus, referring to a Sabine, or the Sabine culture.

Members of the gens

This list includes abbreviated praenomina

Praenomen

The praenomen was a personal name chosen by the parents of a Roman child. It was first bestowed on the dies lustricus , the eighth day after the birth of a girl, or the ninth day after the birth of a boy...

. For an explanation of this practice, see filiation.

Calvisii Sabini

• Gaius Calvisius Sabinus, legate
  Legatus
  A legatus was a general in the Roman army, equivalent to a modern general officer. Being of senatorial rank, his immediate superior was the dux, and he outranked all military tribunes...
  
   of Caesar
  Julius Caesar
  Gaius Julius Caesar was a Roman general and statesman and a distinguished writer of Latin prose. He played a critical role in the gradual transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire....
  
   during the Civil War
  Caesar's civil war
  The Great Roman Civil War , also known as Caesar's Civil War, was one of the last politico-military conflicts in the Roman Republic before the establishment of the Roman Empire...
  
  , and consul
  Roman consul
  A consul served in the highest elected political office of the Roman Republic.Each year, two consuls were elected together, to serve for a one-year term. Each consul was given veto power over his colleague and the officials would alternate each month...
  
   in 39 BC.
• Gaius Calvisius (C. f.) Sabinus, consul in 4 BC.
• Gaius Calvisius (C. f. C. n.) Sabinus
  Gaius Calvisius Sabinus (consul AD 26)
  Gaius Calvisius Sabinus was consul in AD 26 with Gnaeus Cornelius Lentulus Gaetulicus. During the reign of Caligula, he was accused of conspiring against the emperor, and took his own life rather than submit to a trial.-Family:...
  
  , consul in AD 26, later accused of plotting against the emperor Caligula
  Caligula
  Caligula , also known as Gaius, was Roman Emperor from 37 AD to 41 AD. Caligula was a member of the house of rulers conventionally known as the Julio-Claudian dynasty. Caligula's father Germanicus, the nephew and adopted son of Emperor Tiberius, was a very successful general and one of Rome's most...
  
  .
• Calvisius Sabinus
  Calvisius Sabinus (mentioned by Seneca)
  Calvisius Sabinus, whose praenomen is not recorded, was a wealthy contemporary of the younger Seneca.Sabinus was of servile origin, and, though ignorant, he affected to be a man of learning...
  
  , the son of a freedman
  Freedman
  A freedman is a former slave who has been released from slavery, usually by legal means. Historically, slaves became freedmen either by manumission or emancipation ....
  
  , whose wealth and pretension earned him the scorn of the younger Seneca
  Seneca the Younger
  Lucius Annaeus Seneca was a Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, dramatist, and in one work humorist, of the Silver Age of Latin literature. He was tutor and later advisor to emperor Nero...
  
  .
• Publius (Calvisius Sabinus) Pomponius Secundus
  Pomponius Secundus
  Publius Pomponius Secundus was a distinguished statesman and poet in the reigns of Tiberius, Caligula, and Claudius. He was on intimate terms with the elder Plinius, who wrote a biography of him, now lost.-Family:...
  
  , consul suffectus in AD 41, and later triumphed
  Roman triumph
  The Roman triumph was a civil ceremony and religious rite of ancient Rome, held to publicly celebrate and sanctify the military achievement of an army commander who had won great military successes, or originally and traditionally, one who had successfully completed a foreign war. In Republican...
  
   over the Chatti
  Chatti
  The Chatti were an ancient Germanic tribe whose homeland was near the upper Weser. They settled in central and northern Hesse and southern Lower Saxony, along the upper reaches of the Weser River and in the valleys and mountains of the Eder, Fulda and Weser River regions, a district approximately...
  
  ; a notable poet and tragedian; his identification with this gens is uncertain.

Calvisii Rusones

• Publius Calvisius Ruso, consul suffectus in AD 53.
• Publius Calvisius P. f. Ruso, consul suffectus in AD 79.
• Publius Calvisius P. f. Ruso Julius Frontinus, consul suffectus, perhaps in AD 84.
• Gaius Calvisius Tullus Ruso, consul in AD 109.
• Publius Calvisius Tullus Ruso, consul suffectus in AD 110.

Others

• Calvisius Rufus
  Calvisius Rufus
  ... Calvisius Rufus was a governor of Britannia Inferior, a province of Roman Britain some time between AD 222 and 235. Little else is known of him although an inscription does record him adding a building at Old Penrith....
  
  , governor
  Roman governor
  A Roman governor was an official either elected or appointed to be the chief administrator of Roman law throughout one or more of the many provinces constituting the Roman Empire...
  
   of Britannia Inferior
  Britannia Inferior
  Britannia Inferior was a subdivision of the Roman province of Britannia established c. 214 by the emperor Caracalla, son of Septimius Severus. Located in modern northern England, the region was governed from the city of Eboracum by a praetorian legate in command of a single legion stationed in...
  
  at some point between AD 222 and 235.