The gens Trebatia was a minor plebeian family at ancient Rome. Members of this gens are first mentioned at the time of the Social War, in which one of the Samnite generals was a Trebatius, but the best-known of the Trebatii is likely the jurist Gaius Trebatius Testa, a contemporary and friend of Cicero, Caesar, and Augustus.[1]
The nomen Trebatius belongs to a class of gentilicia usually formed from cognomina ending in -as or -atis, usually derived from place names, as well as from surnames ending in -atus.[2] Like the nomen of the similarly named Trebania gens, it likely derives from the town of Treba in Sabinum.[3]
The main praenomina of the Trebatii were Gaius, Gnaeus, and Marcus. From their filiations, we also know that the Trebatii who lived at Mevania used Lucius, while those who lived at Aeclanum used Publius.
A family of the Trebatii lived at Mevania in Umbria during the first century BC and first century AD. A larger family of this name seems to have lived at Aeclanum in Samnium from the first to the third century.