Reddit reviews A Companion to Julius Caesar

To answer your question rather bluntly: no. At least not during the Republic/early Empire.

Rather than immortalising their families through crests/coats of arms one so regularly sees in medieval history, Romans carried on their legacy through their names. The tria nomina is important in understanding this (relevant during the Republic, begins to fade with the development of Emperors). We'll take Gaius Julius Caesar as an example:

• Gaius is the praenomen (trans.: first name/personal name), the name your parents would bestow upon you, and that which only close friends or family members would address you by.
  
• Julius is the nomen gentilicium (trans.: gentile name/family name) - a way of showing that your family is descended from a specific lineage. Caesar, for example, was part of the gens Julia patrician family, which could trace its lineage to the early Roman Republic. The gens Julia eventually formed the Julio-Claudian dynasty of the Roman Empire.
  
• Caesar is the cognomen (trans.: surname/last name) - another hereditary aspect to naming conventions and identity.
  
  To the senatorial class of Rome, your name (therefore lineage) was massively important in being able to identify yourself - like a coat of arms would be to medieval families. Roman names trace where your family came from and their accomplishments. Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus (Africanus was the agnomen, a nickname in other words) is a perfect example of this. His defeat of Hannibal at Zama earned him the final addition to his name, which relatives could also add to show proud military conquests. Again, Scipio can trace his lineage through the nomen gentilicium of Cornelius (the gens Cornelia dynasty). Sorry if I'm rambling, it's just to establish the importance of name.
  
  The importance of coins:
  
  Thousands of coins have survived from Ancient Rome, and they really add to our understanding of Roman society as a whole. There are countless examples of Romans putting their names on coins in conjunction with an image of some sort to represent a certain military or social triumph. Howgego (source below) goes on to talk about how coins began to become a political weapon within the Republic. One can really see the importance of names within this period. Rather than identifying with a coat of arms, one could identify their conquests/importance with a name instead.
  
  Military Context:
  
  In the late Roman Republic, a legion would identify with two things. The first being their standard, which was often an aquila (trans.: eagle). The Roman eagle is a popularly depicted icon, and it was massively important for the legion to keep its standard. Losing a standard could be seen as massively shaming, and Romans would often go to great lengths to get it back. Crassus, for example, is known to have lost the standard at the Battle of Carrhae in 53 BC - it was eventually recovered. Another way in which a legion identified itself was by its name. Names ranged from Legio I Italica to Legio VI Victrix. Some of these names were also depicted on coins in conjunction with the aquila for the relevant legion (see source below for examples). My point with this is that even the military did not identify with a variety of coats of arms, but a unified standard which represented Rome.
  
  Relevant sources:
  
  
• Griffin, M. (ed.), A Companion to Julius Caesar (early chapter talks about the connection of gens Julia to the early Republic).
  
• Howgego, C. J., Ancient History from Coins (chapter 4 details the development of coins as a political device).
  
• Plutarch, The Life of Crassus (can be found for free, although with a dated translation, on Perseus).
  
• The Berlin Numismatic Collection (an excellent coin database).