The gens Canutia or Cannutia 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....

. 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...

appears toward the end 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 is best known from two individuals, the orator Publius Canutius

Publius Canutius

Publius Canutius or Cannutius was described by Cicero as the most eloquent orator of the senatorial order.Canutius was born in 106 B.C., the same year as Cicero...

, and Tiberius Canutius

Tiberius Canutius

Tiberius Canutius or Cannutius was tribune of the plebs in 44 BC, the year of Caesar's assassination. As a supporter of the senatorial party, he opposed the triumvirs, resorting to military force during the Perusine War...

, 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 44 B.C., the year of Caesar's

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....

 assassination. A Gaius Canutius mentioned by Suetonius

Suetonius

Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, commonly known as Suetonius , was a Roman historian belonging to the equestrian order in the early Imperial era....

 is probably the same person as Tiberius; the reference to Canutius in Tacitus'

Tacitus

Publius Cornelius Tacitus was a senator and a historian of the Roman Empire. The surviving portions of his two major works—the Annals and the Histories—examine the reigns of the Roman Emperors Tiberius, Claudius, Nero and those who reigned in the Year of the Four Emperors...

 Dialogus de Oratoribus

Dialogus de oratoribus

The Dialogus de oratoribus is a short work attributed to Tacitus, in dialogue form, on the art of rhetoric. Its date of composition is unknown, though its dedication to Fabius Iustus places its publication around 102 AD....

may refer to either Publius or Tiberius, or perhaps to a different person altogether.