Servilia gens

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 92.14.121.173 (talk) at 23:20, 7 July 2010 (→‎Servilii Cascae). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

The gens Servilia was a patrician family at Rome. The gens was celebrated during the early ages of the Republic, and the names of few gentes appear more frequently at this period in the consular Fasti. It continued to produce men of influence in the state down to the latest times of the Republic, and even in the imperial period. The first member of the gens who obtained the consulship was Publius Servilius Priscus Structus in 495 B.C., and the last of the name who appears in the consular Fasti is Quintus Servilius Silanus, in A.D. 189, thus occupying a prominent position in the Roman state for nearly seven hundred years.

Like other Roman gentes, the Servilii of course had their own sacra; and they are said to have worshipped a triens, or copper coin, which is reported to have increased or diminished in size at various times, thus indicating the increase or diminution of the honors of the gens. Although the Servilii were originally patricians, in the later Republic there were also plebeian Servilii.[1][2][3]

Origin of the gens

The Servilia gens was one of the Alban houses removed to Rome by Tullus Hostilius, and enrolled by him among the patricians. It was, consequently, one of the gentes minores. The nomen Servilius is a patronymic surname, derived from the praenomen Servius, which must have been borne by the ancestor of the gens.[4][5]

Praenomina used by the gens

The different branches of the Servilii each used slightly different sets of praenomina. The oldest stirpes used the praenomina Publius, Quintus, Spurius, and Gaius. The Servilii Caepiones used primarily Gnaeus and Quintus. The Servilii Gemini employed Gnaeus, Quintus, Publius, Gaius, and Marcus. The ancestors of the gens must have used the praenomen Servius, but the family no longer used it in historical times.[6]

Branches and cognomina of the gens

The Servilii were divided into numerous families; of these the names in the Republican period are Ahala, Axilla, Caepio, Casca, Geminus, Glaucia, Globulus, Priscus (with the agnomen Fidenas), Rullus, Structus, Tucca, and Vatia (with the agnomen Isauricus). The Structi, Prisci, Ahalae, and Caepiones were patricians; the Cascae plebeians. Other cognomina appear under the Empire. The only surnames found on coins are those of Ahala, Caepio, Casca, and Rullus.[7][8]

The cognomen Structus almost always occurs in connection with the those of Priscus or Ahala. The only Structus who is mentioned with this cognomen alone is Spurius Servilius Structus, who was consular tribune in 368 B.C. The fact that Structus appears in two of the oldest stirpes of the Servilii, neither of which clearly predates the other, could indicate that persons bearing this surname were ancestral to both great houses.[9]

The Prisci were an ancient family of the Servilia gens, and filled the highest offices of the state during the early years of the Republic. They also bore the agnomen of Structus, which is always appended to their name in the Fasti, till it was supplanted by that of Fidenas, which was first obtained by Quintus Servilius Priscus Structus, who took Fidenae in his dictatorship, in 435 B.C., and which was also borne by his descendants.[10]

Ahala, of which Axilla is merely another form, is a diminutive of ala, a wing. A popular legend related that the name was first given to Gaius Servilius Structus, magister equitum in 439 B.C., because he hid the knife with which he slew Spurius Maelius in his armpit (also ala). However, this does not appear to be the case, since the name had been in use by the family for at least a generation before that event.[11]

Members of the gens

Servilii Prisci

Servilii Ahalae

  • Gaius Servilius Structus Ahala, consul in 478 B.C., died in his year of office.[18][19]
  • Gaius Servilius Structus Ahala, magister equitum in 439 B.C., slew Spurius Maelius.
  • Quintus Servilius C. f. Structus Ahala, father of the consul of 427 B.C.
  • Gaius Servilius Q. f. C. n. Structus Ahala, consul in 427 B.C.[20]
  • Gaius Servilius Q. f. C. n. (Structus) Ahala (or Axilla), tribunus militum consulari potestate in 419 and 418 B.C., and magister equitum in 418.[21][22]
  • Publius Servilius Q. n. Structus Ahala, father of the magister equitum of 408 B.C.
  • Gaius Servilius P. f. Q. n. Structus Ahala, tribunus militum consulari potestate in 408, 407, and 402 B.C., and magister equitum in 408.
  • Gaius Servilius Ahala, magister equitum in 389 and 385 B.C.
  • Quintus Servilius Q. f. Ahala, father of the consul of 365 B.C.
  • Quintus Servilius Q. f. Q. n. Ahala, consul in 365 and 362 B.C., and dictator in 360.
  • Quintus Servilius Q. f. Q. n. Ahala, magister equitum in 351 and consul in 342 B.C.[23]

Servilii Structi

  • Gaius Servilius Structus, grandfather of the consular tribune.
  • Gaius Servilius C. f. Structus, father of the consular tribune.
  • Spurius Servilius C. f. C. n. Structus, tribunus militum consulari potestate in 368 B.C.[24][25][26]

Servilii Caepiones

Servilii Gemini

Servilii Cascae

Servilii Vatiae

Servilii Rulli

Others

  • Gaius Servilius Tucca, consul in 284 B.C.[37]
  • Servilia, the wife of Quintus Lutatius Catulus, consul in 102 B.C.[38]
  • Gaius Servilius Glaucia, praetor in 100 B.C., a supporter of Lucius Appuleius Saturninus, with whom he perished.
  • Quintus Servilius, proconsul in 90 B.C., was slain by the inhabitants of Asculum on the outbreak of the Social War.
  • Publius Servilius, an eques, magister of one of the companies that farmed the taxes in Sicilia during the administration of Verres.[39]
  • Publius Servilius Globulus, tribunus plebis in 67 B.C.
  • Gaius Servilius, a Roman citizen in Sicilia, publicly scourged by Verres.[40]
  • Marcus Servilius, accused of repetundae in 51 B.C.[41]
  • Marcus Servilius, tribunus plebis in 44 B.C., praised by Cicero as a vir fortissimus.[42]
  • Marcus Servilius Nonianus, consul in A.D. 35, and one of the most celebrated orators and historians of his time.
  • Servilius Damocrates, a physician at Rome during the first century.
  • Servilius Barea Soranus, consul suffectus in A.D. 52, and afterwards proconsul of Asia; falsely accused of plotting revolution, and condemned to death.
  • Servilia, daughter of Barea Soranus, accused and condemned with her father in A.D. 66.
  • Quintus Servilius Pudens, consul in A.D. 166.[43][44]
  • Marcus Servilius Silanus, consul in A.D. 188.[45]
  • Quintus Servilius Silanus, consul in A.D. 189.[46]

See also

Footnotes

  1. ^ Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, William Smith, Editor.
  2. ^ Fasti Capitolini.
  3. ^ Gaius Plinius Secundus, Historia Naturalis, xxxiv. 13. s. 38.
  4. ^ Titus Livius, Ab Urbe Condita, i. 30.
  5. ^ George Davis Chase, "The Origin of Roman Praenomina", in Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, vol. VIII (1897).
  6. ^ Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, William Smith, Editor.
  7. ^ Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, William Smith, Editor.
  8. ^ Joseph Hilarius Eckhel, Doctrina Numorum Veterum, v. p. 308 ff.
  9. ^ Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, William Smith, Editor.
  10. ^ Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, William Smith, Editor.
  11. ^ Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, William Smith, Editor.
  12. ^ Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Romaike Archaiologia, vi. 40.
  13. ^ Titus Livius, Ab Urbe Condita, iii. 6, 7.
  14. ^ Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Romaike Archaiologia, ix. 67, 68.
  15. ^ Paulus Orosius, Historiarum Adversum Paganos Libri VII, ii. 12.
  16. ^ Titus Livius, Ab Urbe Condita, vi. 22, 31, 36.
  17. ^ Titus Livius, Ab Urbe Condita, vi. 31.
  18. ^ Titus Livius, Ab Urbe Condita, ii. 49.
  19. ^ Fasti Capitolini.
  20. ^ Titus Livius, Ab Urbe Condita, iv. 30.
  21. ^ Fasti Capitolini.
  22. ^ Titus Livius, Ab Urbe Condita, iv. 45, 46.
  23. ^ Titus Livius, Ab Urbe Condita, vii. 22, 38.
  24. ^ Titus Livius, Ab Urbe Condita, vi. 38.
  25. ^ Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca Historica, xv. 78.
  26. ^ Fasti Capitolini.
  27. ^ Marcus Tullius Cicero, Epistulae ad Atticum, xii. 5, De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum, ii. 16, In Verrem, i. 55.
  28. ^ Sextus Julius Frontinus, De Aquaeductu, 8.
  29. ^ Marcus Velleius Paterculus, Compendium of Roman History, ii. 10.
  30. ^ Appianus, Bellum Civile, ii. 14.
  31. ^ Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, De Vita Caesarum, Caesar 21.
  32. ^ Plutarchus, Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans, Caesar, 14, Pompeius, 47.
  33. ^ Valerius Maximus, Factorum ac Dictorum Memorabilium libri IX, i. 8. § 11.
  34. ^ Titus Livius, Ab Urbe Condita, xxv. 3.
  35. ^ Lucius Cassius Dio Cocceianus, Roman History, xlviii. 28.
  36. ^ Appianus, Bellum Civile, v. 58.
  37. ^ Fasti Capitolini.
  38. ^ Marcus Tullius Cicero, In Verrem, ii. 8.
  39. ^ Marcus Tullius Cicero, In Verrem, iii. 71.
  40. ^ Marcus Tullius Cicero, In Verrem, v. 54.
  41. ^ Marcus Tullius Cicero, Epistulae ad Familiares, viii. 8 § 3, Epistulae ad Atticum, vi. 3 § 10.
  42. ^ Marcus Tullius Cicero, Epistulae ad Familiares, xii. 7, Philippicae, iv. 6.
  43. ^ Aelius Lampridius, Alexander Severus, Commodus, 11.
  44. ^ Fasti Capitolini.
  45. ^ Fasti Capitolini.
  46. ^ Fasti Capitolini.

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Smith, William, ed. (1870). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Servilia_gens&oldid=372298210"