[5] The position of the Potitii in this cult was superior to that of the Pinarii, who were excluded from partaking of the entrails of the sacrifice, supposedly because they had arrived late to the sacrificial banquet given by Hercules.
[2][3] In 312 BC, Appius Claudius Caecus, during his censorship, attempted to persuade the Potitii and the Pinarii to instruct the public slaves in these rites.
[7] The disappearance of an entire gens was extraordinary; together with the fact that no magistrates or other important Potitii are mentioned in surviving records, this has led some historians to suspect that they were not in fact a distinct gens, but instead a branch of another patrician family that became extinct around the period of the Samnite Wars, such as the Valerii Potiti, whose surname, Potitus, might have been mistaken for a nomen, Potitius.
These novels follow the history of Rome, up to the reign of Hadrian, and concern the fortunes of the Potitii and Pinarii, through the passing down of a family heirloom.
As depicted by Saylor, the Potitii who suddenly died were in fact murdered, a clever and ruthless killer poisoning them one by one and never being discovered.