According to the traditional accounts, Lucius would have been born about 519BC, during the last decade of the Roman Kingdom. He would have been a member of the lesser patrician clan (') Quinctia, whom Tullus Hostilius supposedly moved to Rome from the Latin city of Alba Longa. The clan's first consul was Titus Quinctius Capitolinus Barbatus, elected in 471BC. As both Titus and Lucius are recorded as the son and grandson of men named Lucius Quinctius, Titus is sometimes thought to have been Lucius's brother. This suggests Lucius was the first of his cognomen ', meaning "the curly haired". The family was relatively rich.