Several words are used to express parenthood in the Republican period, but such terms as genitor, genetrix, creator, creatrix, omniparens, and sator are used very infrequently. Some of the major authors of the period use no words of parenthood other than pater, mater, and parens, and in the others the number of occurrences is so trifling that we can limit our study to the three words most commonly employed.

The meanings of pater and mater present no problems in either the singular or the plural. Parens may now be more fully considered. Whatever change of gender this word underwent must have been completed in the pre-literary period of Latin, or, at any rate, before our extant literature was written. It happens that parens is masculine in the earliest example of its use, Carmen Saliare 1 (Baehrens):

divóm paréntem cánte,

divóm deo súpplicáte.

The plural of parens is a convenient word for the meaning pater et mater or patres et matres. Neither patres nor matres will properly express this meaning. Although the plural of parens proves to have a variety of meanings, we may well expect the meanings ‘father and mother’ and ‘fathers and mothers’ to predominate. Moreover, because of its convenience we may expect the plural of parens to occur more often relatively than the singular.

Metrical convenience and metrical preference seem to enter into a poet's choice among parens, pater, and mater. Forms of parens provide suitable and desirable endings for lines of several metres, notably the dactylic hexameter. It must be remembered that sometimes a poet may choose one word rather than another because it conveniently fits into a certain place in his line, while on other occasions he writes his line in such a way as to enable him to use the word which he desires. Perhaps the two influences counteract each other.

Caesar. Many of the authors of the Republican period, such as Caesar, have used words of parenthood so infrequently that figures indicating the number of instances of each word in such authors have small significance. Table V shows the number of times Caesar employs each of the three words in each case. The nominative singular to the ablative plural are to be read from left to right with the total last.

There are several ways in which the gender or meaning of the occurrences of parens is indicated. The most obvious indication is that afforded by a modifier, as in Cicero, Planc. 42.102: simul hic miserrimus et optimus obtestatur parens. Here the adjectives miserrimus and optimus definitely show that parens is masculine. Another example is Terence, Heaut. 1027: quod peto aut quod volo, parentes meos ut commonstres mihi. In this, meos limits parentes to the meaning ‘father and mother’. An examination of passages of this sort never suggests the meaning ‘father and grandfather’, or any similar interpretation. When noster, vester, or suns modifies the singular of parens it indicates by its gender whether a father or a mother is referred to, as in Caesar, BC 1.74.6: filius adulescens de sua ac parentis sui salute cum Caesare per Sulpicium legatum agebat. The meaning of the plural of parens, however, is not indicated by noster, vester, or suns; nostris does not reveal the meaning of parentibus in Cicero, Fam. 6.16.1 (Bithynicus Ciceroni): si mihi tecum non et multae et iustae causae amicitiae privatim essent, repeterem initia amicitiae ex parentibus nostris...