The gens Cantia was a plebeian

Plebs

The plebs was the general body of free land-owning Roman citizens in Ancient Rome. They were distinct from the higher order of the patricians. A member of the plebs was known as a plebeian...

 family at Rome

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....

. It is known primarily from a single individual, Marcus Cantius, 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 293 B.C. He brought an indictment against Lucius Postumius Megellus

Lucius Postumius Megellus

Lucius Postumius Megellus is the name of two Ancient Romans of the gens Postumia:*Lucius Postumius Megellus, son of Lucius, consul in 305 BC, 294 BC, and 291 BC;...

, one of the consuls of the preceding year. Postumius, however, was appointed 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...

 to the consul Spurius Carvilius Maximus

Spurius Carvilius Maximus

Spurius Carvilius C. f. C. n., later surnamed Maximus, was the first member of the plebeian gens Carvilia to obtain the consulship, which he held in 293 BC, and again in 272 BC.-Early career:...

, whose popularity shielded him from a trial. Some manuscripts give the tribune's 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...

as Scantius.