Category talk:Flavii

Divide this category?

This category really needs to be split up. Currently it includes both members of the gens Flavia, and those who used Flavius as a courtesy title in the 4th century & later (e.g. Fl. Orestes. (This was especially common in the Eastern Roman Empire.) I've mentioned this distinction in the past; perhaps I need to provide more evidence that not all Flavii (such as Fl. Arrian, Fl. Boethius, & Fl. Stilicho) claimed some blood relation to the earlier Flavii. -- llywrch (talk) 22:34, 26 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

As a rule of thumb, one could just not categorize as Flavius any individual who comes after the Neo-Flavian dynasty and Constantine, unless a good reason can be given. Prosopographical lists disregard "Flavius" when sorting individuals by name because it is so common, and we may do the same thing. I've never seen a coin of any emperor from Jovian to Romulus (except for Flavius Victor) which features the nomen "Flavius", suggesting it really was no more than an honorific in their case, so one may tentatively remove them altogether from the category. Of course, this is not just a 'Flavius' problem, it also extends to 'Aurelius' and 'Julius' since both were also used as 'citizenship badges'. It's impossible to precisely delineate at which point in time did those appellations become courtesy rather than family names. Avis11 (talk) 02:27, 21 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]