The gens Lucilia was a plebs family at ancient Rome. The most famous member of this gens was the poet Gaius Lucilius, who flourished during the latter part of the second century BC.[ Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. II, p. 822 ("Lucilia Gens").] Although many Lucilii appear in Roman history, the only one known to have obtained any of the higher offices of the Roman state was Lucilius Longus, consul suffectus in AD 7.
Origin
The nomen
Lucilius is a patronymic surname, derived from the common
Latin praenomen Lucius.
[Chase, p. 125] The satirist Lucilius is said to have come from
Sessa Aurunca, an ancient town of the
Aurunci, where a Latin colony was established in 313 BC.
[Juvenal, i. 20.]
Branches and cognomina
In the time of the
Roman Republic, the surnames of the Lucilii were
Balbus and
Bassus, the former originally referring to one who stammers, and the latter referring to someone
stout or
sturdy. Later, in
Roman Empire, we find
Capito, given to one with a large or prominent head, and
Longus, "tall".
Rufus, commonly given to someone with red hair, appears on coins of the Lucilii, but the
cognomen is not mentioned by any ancient writer. A number of the Lucilii are mentioned without a surname.
[Chase, pp. 109, 110.]
Members
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Gaius Lucilius, the originator of Roman satire, lived during the second century BC, and is said to have served in the Roman cavalry under Scipio Aemilianus during the Numantine War. When he died at Naples in 103 BC, he was honoured with a public funeral.
[ Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. II, p. 823 ("Gaius Lucilius").]
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Manius Lucilius M. f., a senator in 129 BC.
[Sherk, " Senatus Consultum De Agro Pergameno", p. 367.]
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Marcus Lucilius Rufus, as triumvir monetalis in 101 BC, minted coins depicting Athena on the obverse, and Victoria driving a biga on the reverse.
[Eckhel, vol. V, p. 239.]
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Lucius Lucilius L. f., praetor about 91 BC, governor of Asia.
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Sextus Lucilius was tribune of the plebs in 86 BC. He was a partisan of Sulla, but the following year, with Sulla's enemies in control of the city, he was hurled from the Tarpeian Rock by his successor, Publius Popillius Laenas.
[Velleius Paterculus, ii. 24.]
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Lucius Lucilius Balbus, a jurist, who studied under Quintus Mucius Scaevola, and was in turn one of the instructors of Servius Sulpicius Rufus. Cicero describes him as a man of much learning, who gave his opinions in a slow and deliberate manner.
[Cicero, De Oratore, iii. 21; Brutus, 42; Pro Quinto, 16, 17.][ Digesta, i. tit. 2. s. 42.]
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Gaius Lucilius C. f. Hirrus, a merchant from Pompeii, was tribune of the plebs in 53 BC. From 43, he was in Sicily with Sextus Pompeius.
[Caesar, De Bello Civili, i. 15, iii. 82.][Cicero, Epistulae ad Familiares, ii. 10. s. 1, 15. s. 1, viii. 8. s. 5.][Pluarch, "The Life of Pompeius", 54.][Pliny the Elder, ix. 171.][Appian, Bellum Civile, iv. 180, 354.]
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Quintus Lucilius Balbus, probably the brother of the jurist, was a Stoicism philosopher, and a student of Panaetius. He was much admired by Cicero, who uses him as an exponent in both De Natura Deorum and Hortensius.
[Cicero, De Natura Deorum, i. 6, iii. 40; De Divinatione, i. 5; Hortensius ( Fragmenta p. 484, ed. Orelli).]
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Lucilius Bassus, according to Cicero an author well known for his lack of literary merit. In a letter to Titus Pomponius Atticus, he writes of his panegyric upon Cato the Younger, "I am well pleased with my work, but so is Bassus Lucilius with his."
[Cicero, Epistulae ad Atticum, xii. 5, as quoted in the Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. II, p. 473 ("Lucilius Bassus").]
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Sextus Lucilius, military tribune in the army of Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus in 50 BC. He was slain at Mount Amanus.
[Cicero, Epistulae ad Atticum, v. 20. § 4.]
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Lucius Lucilius (L. f. Balbus), probably the son of the jurist, served under Appius Claudius Pulcher in Cilicia. He is probably the same Lucilius who commanded the fleet of Publius Cornelius Dolabella in Cilicia, in 43 BC.
[Cicero, Epistulae ad Familiares, iii. 5. § 1, xii. 13. § 3.]
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Gaius Lucilius, a friend of Cicero and Milo.
[Asconius, In Milone, p. 37 (ed. Orelli).]
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Lucilius, a partisan of Brutus, who fought at the Battle of Philippi. During the retreat, he pretended to be Brutus in order to save his friend. Struck by his self-sacrifice, Mark Antony pardoned Lucilius, and the two became fast friends.
[Appian, Bellum Civile, i. 129.][Plutarch, "The Life of Brutus", 50; "The Life of Antonius", 69.]
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Marcus Lucilius Paetus, a military tribune in the time of Augustus. A tomb belonging to him and his sister, Lucilia Polla, was discovered in Rome, near the Villa Albani, in 1885. It is a round structure about thirty-four metres across, and believed to have been surmounted by a conical mound of earth seventeen metres high.
[.]
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Lucilius Longus, a Roman Senate, and a close friend of Tiberius. He was consul suffectus for the last six months of AD 7. When Augustus required the latter to withdraw to Rhodes, Lucilius was the only senator to accompany him. When he died in AD 23, Tiberius honoured him with a Roman censor funeral.
[ Fasti Albenses, , Fasti Urbisalvienses, .][Tacitus, Annales, iv. 15.]
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Lucilius, a centurion killed in the Pannonian mutiny, AD 14. He was known as Cedo Alteram ("Fetch Me Another"), for his tendency to break his vine staff during beatings.
[Tacitus, Annales, i. 23.]
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Lucilius Capito, procurator of Asia in AD 23. He was accused of corruption by the people of his province, and was tried in the Senate.
[Tacitus, Annales, iv. 15.][Cassius Dio, lvii. 23.]
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Lucilia Polla, commemorated on a monument in the Santa Giulia museum at Brescia.
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Lucilius Junior, procurator of Sicily, was a friend and correspondent of the younger Seneca.
[Seneca the Younger, Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium, lxxix.]
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Lucilius Bassus, commander of a cavalry squadron in AD 69 under Vitellius, who gave him command of the fleet at Ravenna and Miseno. Disappointed at not receiving command of the Praetorian Guard, he went over to Vespasian, to whom he delivered the fleet. Once established in power, Vespasian sent Bassus to pacify Campania.
[Tacitus, Historiae, ii. 100, iii. 12, 36, 40, iv. 3.][Gruter, p. 573.]
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Sextus Lucilius Bassus, governor of Judea from AD 71 to 72.
See also
Bibliography
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Cicero, Epistulae ad Atticum, Epistulae ad Familiares, De Oratore, Brutus, Pro Quinto Roscio Comoedo, De Natura Deorum, De Divinatione, Hortensius.
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Marcus Velleius Paterculus, Compendium of Roman History.
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Lucius Annaeus Seneca (Seneca the Younger), Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius).
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Quintus Asconius Pedianus, Commentarius in Oratio Ciceronis Pro Milone (Commentary on Cicero's Oration Pro Milone).
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Juvenal, Satirae (Satires).
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Tacitus, Annales, Historiae.
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, Parallel Lives.
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Appianus Alexandrinus (Appian), Bellum Civile (The Civil War).
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Lucius Cassius Dio Cocceianus (Cassius Dio), Roman History.
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Digesta seu Pandectae (The Digest).
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Jan Gruter, Inscriptiones Antiquae Totius Orbis Romani, Heidelberg (1603).
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Joseph Hilarius Eckhel, Doctrina Numorum Veterum (The Study of Ancient Coins, 1792–1798).
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Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, William Smith, ed., Little, Brown and Company, Boston (1849).
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George Davis Chase, "The Origin of Roman Praenomina", in Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, vol. VIII (1897).
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Robert K. Sherk, " The Text of the Senatus Consultum De Agro Pergameno", in Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies, vol. 7, pp. 361–369 (1966).
External links
