The source you are referring to is the definitive book on early Roman history by British historian Tim J. Cornell:

• Book Title: The Beginnings of Rome: Italy and Rome from the Bronze Age to the Punic Wars (c. 1000–264 BC) (First published in 1995 by Routledge).
• Specific Pages: Pages 174, 177, and 178. [1, 2, 3]

Context of the Source

In these specific pages, Cornell discusses the organization of early Roman society and the formation of the rustic tribes (the voting districts of the Roman Republic). [1, 2]

• The Gentes & The Tribes: The earliest rural tribes created during the regal and early republican eras were named after major patrician clans (the gentes) who owned large tracts of land in those areas. [1]
• The "Laemoni" (Lemonia gens): Your text contains a minor typographical variation; it refers to the ancient gens Lemonia (often tied to the geographic region Pagus Lemonius). Cornell uses these pages to detail how the Lemonia clan was among the original patrician gentes that gave their name to one of the 17 original Servian rustic tribes. [1]

If you are looking to find this exact reference in academic citations or bibliographies (such as on open source historical platforms), it is formatted as:

Cornell, T.J. (1995). The Beginnings of Rome. London: Routledge, pp. 174, 177, 178. [1, 2]

Would you like me to look into how Cornell delineates the other 16 rustic tribes, or do you need help finding a digital or physical copy of this specific text?

what authority does he give?

In chapters handling the origin of the 17 earliest rustic tribes (tribus), Tim J. Cornell relies on a combination of primary classical authors and foundational 20th-century epigraphic and analytical scholarship.

Because the Lemonia gens (and several other eponyms like Camilia, Voltinia, or Pollia) left virtually no footprint in the later consular records, reconstructing their early patrician status relies on the following authorities: [1]

1. Primary Classical Authorities

Cornell relies heavily on the ancient historians who documented the Servian reforms and the creation of the voting tribes:

Livy (Ab Urbe Condita) & Dionysius of Halicarnassus (Roman Antiquities): These two are the foundational literary authorities for how the Roman territory was organized into geographic tribes under King Servius Tullius. While they do not explicitly list all 17 names in one clean passage, they provide the structural framework for the Pagus system and the evolution of the Comitia Tributa. [1, 2]

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Marcus Terentius Varro (De Lingua Latina) & Verrius Flaccus (via Festus): These ancient Roman antiquarians and grammarians provide the vital etymological links. They note that the names of the rustic tribes were derived from the nomina (family names) of the dominant patrician gentes who originally controlled those geographical sectors (e.g., the Pagus Lemonius along the Via Latina). [1]

2. Secondary Modern Authorities

Like most modern Roman historians, Cornell builds directly upon the definitive work of mid-20th-century prosopographical and constitutional scholars:

Lily Ross Taylor: Her seminal 1960 book, The Voting Districts of the Roman Republic, is the primary modern authority on this topic. Taylor meticulously mapped out how the 17 earliest rustic tribes were named after patrician families (gentes) who held territory just outside the city walls before the expansion of 387 BC. [1]

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Andreas Alföldi: In works like Early Rome and the Latins (1965), Alföldi argued fiercely that the rustic tribes preserve the memory of an archaic patrician aristocracy. He is a primary source for the thesis that even "obscure" tribal names like Lemonia represent extinct or faded 6th-century BC patrician clans. [1]

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Theodor Mommsen: Mommsen’s Römisches Staatsrecht (Roman Constitutional Law) remains the bedrock authority Cornell references for the legal evolution of the gentes into political voting units.

The Core Historical Logic

The main "authority" Cornell uses is actually a logical deduction agreed upon by these scholars: because allknown names of the 17 earliest rural tribes match the names of prominent early patrician families (like Fabia, Cornelia, Aemilia, Claudia), historians deduce that the obscure tribal names—such as Lemonia—must have belonged to patrician gentes that simply died out or lost their political prominence before Rome began keeping reliable written magistrate lists (the Fasti). [1, 2]

Would you like to explore how Lily Ross Taylor mapped the geographic location of the Lemonia tribe, or look into the names of the other obscure, extinct gentes in that list?