Verginia (gens)

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The gens Verginia or Virginia was a prominent family at Rome, which from an early period was divided into patrician and plebeian branches. The gens was of great antiquity, and frequently filled the highest honors of the state during the early years of the Republic. The first of the family who obtained the consulship was Opiter Verginius Tricostus in 502 BC, the seventh year of the Republic. The plebeian members of the family were also numbered amongst the early tribunes of the people.[1]

Origin of the gens

The orthography of the nomen Verginius or Virginius has been disputed since ancient times; but Verginius is the form usually found in both manuscripts and inscriptions. Modern writers seem to favor Virginius, perhaps by analogy to virgo, a maiden. A similar instance is presented by the nomen Vergilius, which in modern times is often spelt Virgilius.[2]

Praenomina used by the gens

The early Verginii favored the praenomina Opiter, Proculus, Titus, Aulus, Lucius, and Spurius. In later times they used mainly Lucius, Aulus, and Titus.[3][4][5]

Branches and cognomina of the gens

All of the patrician Verginii bore the cognomen Tricostus, but they were divided into various families with the surnames of Caeliomontanus, Esquilinus, and Rutilus, respectively. The surnames Caeliomontanus and Esquilinus presumably derive from the Caelian and Esquiline Hills, where these families probably lived. Rutilus is derived from a Latin adjective, meaning "reddish," and was probably acquired because some of the Verginii had red hair. The general Lucius Verginius Rufus, who lived in the 1st century AD, may have obtained his cognomen for the same reason. Although the plebeian Verginii are also mentioned at an early period, none of them had any cognomen. Under the Empire there are Verginii with other surnames.[6][7]

Members of the gens

This list includes abbreviated praenomina. For an explanation of this practice, see filiation.

Verginii Tricosti

Tricosti Caeliomontani

  • Aulus Verginius Tricostus Caeliomontanus, father of the consuls of 496 and 494 BC.
  • Titus Verginius A. f. Tricostus Caeliomontanus, consul in 496 BC with Aulus Postumius Albus Regillensis.[15][16][17]
  • Aulus Verginius A. f. Tricostus Caeliomontanus, consul in 494 BC, he marched against the Volsci, whom he defeated, and took the town of Velitrae. He was one of the envoys sent by the senate to treat with the plebs during the secession of that year.[18][19][20]
  • Titus Verginius Tricostus Caeliomontanus, father of the consul of 448 BC.
  • Aulus Verginius A. f. A. n. Tricostus Caeliomontanus, consul in 469 BC, marched against the Aequi. His army was nearly destroyed in consequence of his own negligence, but through the valor of his soldiers he eventually defeated the Aequian force.[21][22][23]
  • Spurius Verginius A. f. A. n. Tricostus Caeliomontanus, consul in 456 BC; in his consulship the ludi saeculares are said to have been celebrated for the second time.[24][25][26][27]
  • Titus Verginius T. f. Tricostus Caeliomontanus, consul in 448 BC.[28][29][30]

Tricosti Esquilini

  • Opiter Verginius Tricostus Esquilinus, consul suffectus in 478 BC, in the place of Gaius Servilius Structus Ahala, who died in his year of office.[31]
  • Lucius Verginius Opet. f. Tricostus Esquilinus, father of the consular tribune of 402 BC.
  • Lucius Verginius L. f. Opet. n. Tricostus Esquilinus, tribunus militum consulari potestate in 402 BC; the siege of Veii was entrusted to him and his colleague, Manius Sergius Fidenas, but because of their personal enmity, the Veientes were relieved, and Sergius' force was overpowered. The two tribunes were compelled to resign, and in the following year they were tried and condemned to pay a heavy fine.[32][33]

Tricosti Rutili

  • Proculus Verginius Opet. f. Opet. n. Tricostus Rutilus, consul in 486 BC, marched against the Aequi, but as they would not meet him in the field, he ravaged their territory. He actively opposed the agrarian law brought forward by his colleague, Spurius Cassius Viscellinus.[34][35]
  • Titus Verginius Opet. f. Opet. n. Tricostus Rutilus, consul in 479 BC with Caeso Fabius Vibulanus; the same year the Fabii resolved to leave Rome in order to carry on the war against Veii. Verginius was an augur, and died during the great pestilence which devastated Rome in 463 BC.[36][37][38]
  • Aulus Verginius Opet. f. Opet. n. Tricostus Rutilus, consul in 476 BC.[39][40][41]

Others

  • Publius Virginius was a senator in 494 BC. During the secession of the plebs in that year, when the senate was debating whether or not to grant relief in response to the plebs' complaints about debt, Virginius unsuccessfully advocated a middle path, that relief from debt be granted but only to those plebeians who had served in the army.[42]
  • Aulus Verginius, tribunus plebis in 461 BC, he accused Caeso Quinctius Cincinnatus, son of the dictator Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus, and after a severe struggle obtained his condemnation.[43]
  • Lucius Verginius, the father of Verginia, whose tragic fate occasioned the downfall of the decemvirs, in 449 BC; he was subsequently elected one of the tribuni plebis for that year.
  • Verginia L. f., was taken into custody by Marcus Claudius, a client of Appius Claudius Crassus, who claimed her as his slave. According to legend, the judgment of Appius that Verginia was indeed a slave led to the downfall of the decemvirs.
  • Aulus Verginius, tribunus plebis in 395 BC, together with his colleague, Quintus Pomponius Rufus, opposed a measure to establish a colony at Veii. Two years later, the tribunes were condemned and fined for their position.[44]
  • Aulus Verginius, one of the patrician Verginii; his daughter, Verginia, went over to the plebeians.
  • Verginia A. f., a patrician by birth, married the plebeian Lucius Volumnius Flamma Violens, who was consul in 307 and 296 BC. She dedicated a chapel in which plebeian women could honor the goddess Pudicitia, after being excluded from her worship by the patricians on account of her marriage to a plebeian.[45]
  • Lucius Verginius, tribunus militum in 207 BC, during the Second Punic War. He brought the captured messengers of Hasdrubal to the consul, Gaius Claudius Nero.[46]
  • Verginius, according to Plutarchus, the tribunus plebis who accused Lucius Cornelius Sulla in 87 BC; according to Cicero, his name was Marcus Vergilius.[47][48]
  • Verginius, an orator proscribed by the triumvirs in 43 BC; he escaped to Sicily by promising large sums of money to his slaves, and then to the soldiers who were sent to kill him.[49]
  • Verginius Capito, the master of a slave who escaped from the citadel at Tarracina during the war between Vitellius and Vespasian, in AD 69, and betrayed the citadel to Lucius Vitellius, the emperor's brother.[50]
  • Verginius Flavus, a rhetorician, who flourished during the first century AD; he was one of the teachers of Aulus Persius Flaccus.[51][52]
  • Lucius Verginius Rufus, consul in AD 63, 69, and 97; a general in Germania at the death of Nero, he three times refused the demand of his soldiers to claim the imperial dignity.
  • Verginius Romanus, a contemporary of the younger Plinius, was an author of comedies and mimi-iambi, which were much praised by Plinius.[53]

See also

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, William Smith, Editor.
  2. ↑ Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, William Smith, Editor.
  3. ↑ Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, William Smith, Editor.
  4. ↑ T. Robert S. Broughton, The Magistrates of the Roman Republic (1952).
  5. ↑ Realencyclopädie der Classischen Altertumswissenschaft.
  6. ↑ Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, William Smith, Editor.
  7. ↑ D.P. Simpson, Cassell's Latin & English Dictionary (1963).
  8. ↑ Titus Livius, Ab Urbe Condita, ii. 17.
  9. ↑ Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Romaike Archaiologia, v. 49.
  10. ↑ T. Robert S. Broughton, The Magistrates of the Roman Republic (1952).
  11. ↑ Titus Livius, Ab Urbe Condita, ii. 54.
  12. ↑ Titus Livius, Ab Urbe Condita, iv. 21.
  13. ↑ Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca Historica, xii. 49.
  14. ↑ Titus Livius, Ab Urbe Condita, vi. 1.
  15. ↑ Titus Livius, Ab Urbe Condita, ii. 21.
  16. ↑ Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Romaike Archaiologia, vi. 2.
  17. ↑ T. Robert S. Broughton, The Magistrates of the Roman Republic (1952).
  18. ↑ Titus Livius, Ab Urbe Condita, ii. 28-30
  19. ↑ Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Romaike Archaiologia, vi. 34, 42, 69.
  20. ↑ Quintus Asconius Pedianus, in Cornel., p. 76, ed. Orelli.
  21. ↑ Titus Livius, Ab Urbe Condita, ii. 63
  22. ↑ Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Romaike Archaiologia, ix. 56.
  23. ↑ Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca Historica, xi. 70.
  24. ↑ Titus Livius, Ab Urbe Condita, iii. 31.
  25. ↑ Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca Historica, xii. 4.
  26. ↑ Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Romaike Archaiologia, x. 31.
  27. ↑ Censorinus, De Die Natali, 17.
  28. ↑ Titus Livius, Ab Urbe Condita, iii. 65.
  29. ↑ Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Romaike Archaiologia, xi. 51.
  30. ↑ Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca Historica, xii. 27.
  31. ↑ Fasti Capitolini.
  32. ↑ Titus Livius, Ab Urbe Condita, v. 8, 9, 11, 12.
  33. ↑ T. Robert S. Broughton, The Magistrates of the Roman Republic (1952).
  34. ↑ Titus Livius, Ab Urbe Condita, ii. 41.
  35. ↑ Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Romaike Archaiologia, viii. 68, ix. 51.
  36. ↑ Titus Livius, Ab Urbe Condita, ii. 48, 49, iii. 7.
  37. ↑ Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Romaike Archaiologia, ix. 14.
  38. ↑ T. Robert S. Broughton, The Magistrates of the Roman Republic (1952).
  39. ↑ Titus Livius, Ab Urbe Condita, ii. 51.
  40. ↑ Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Romaike Archaiologia, ix. 25.
  41. ↑ T. Robert S. Broughton, The Magistrates of the Roman Republic (1952).
  42. ↑ Livy, Ab urbe condita, 2.29-30
  43. ↑ Titus Livius, Ab Urbe Condita, iii. 11-13.
  44. ↑ Titus Livius, Ab Urbe Condita, v. 29.
  45. ↑ Titus Livius, Ab Urbe Condita, x. 23.
  46. ↑ Titus Livius, Ab Urbe Condita, xxvii. 43.
  47. ↑ Marcus Tullius Cicero, Brutus, 48.
  48. ↑ Plutarchus, Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans, "Sulla," 10.
  49. ↑ Appianus, Bellum Civile, iv. 48.
  50. ↑ Publius Cornelius Tacitus, Historiae, iii. 77, iv. 3.
  51. ↑ Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, De Claris Rhetoribus, "Persius."
  52. ↑ Burmann, Praefat. ad. Cic. Herennium. ed. Schütz, p. xiv.
  53. ↑ Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus, Epistulae, vi. 21.

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Smith, William, ed. (1867). "article name needed". Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. 

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