High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The gens Aurelia was a plebeian family at Rome. The first member of the gens who obtained the consulship was Gaius Aurelius Cotta in 252 B.C., from which time the Aurelii become distinguished in history down to the end of the Republic. The Aurelii flourished under the Empire, and many later families of citizens enrolled under the authority of Emperors or magistrates bearing this nomen were also called Aurelius. The name became so common that it was so ...