Ancient Roman family
The gens Urbinia was an obscure plebeian family at ancient Rome. Only a few members of this gens are mentioned by Roman writers, but others are known from inscriptions.
Origin
The nomen Urbinius belongs to a class of gentilicia originally formed from cognomina ending in -inus.[1] The surname Urbinus probably referred to a native of Urbinum in Umbria.
Members
- Urbinia,[i] a vestal virgin buried alive for unchastity during the pestilence of 472 BC.[2][3]
- Gaius Urbinius, quaestor in 74 BC, served under Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius in Hispania Ulterior.[4][5]
- Urbinius Panopion,[ii] proscribed by the Second Triumvirate, was saved by one of his slaves, who exchanged clothes with him, and was slain in his place.[6][7]
- Urbinia, a woman whose estate was contested by a certain Clusinius Figulus, who claimed to be her son, and retained the advocate Labienus to represent him against Urbinia's heirs, represented by Gaius Asinius Pollio. Quintilian describes a rhetorical trick of Asinius, who implied that Figulus' case was exceptionally weak by describing Labienus himself as the strongest point in the plaintiff's favour.[8][9][10]
- Lucius Urbinius Quartinus, a native of Africa, was a soldier in the praetorian guard, where he served in the century of Faenius Justus. He was buried at Misenum in Campania, aged sixty, having served for twenty-five years, in a tomb built by Lucius Valerius Saturninus, dating from the second century, or the first half of the third.[11]
- Marcus Urbinius Rufus, a native of Dacia, dedicated a tomb at Misenum, dating between the middle of the second century and the middle of the third, for his fellow-soldier, Cassius Albanus, a native of Corsica, aged thirty years, two months, and two days.[12]
- Gaius Urbinius Victor, buried in a third-century tomb at Genua in Liguria.[13]
Undated Urbinii
See also
Notes
- ^ Some manuscripts give her name as Orbinia.
- ^ Called "Appion" by Appian.
References
- ^ Chase, pp. 125, 126.
- ^ Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities, ix. 40, 41.
- ^ Broughton, vol. I, p. 30.
- ^ Sallust, Historiae, ii. 70.
- ^ Broughton, vol. II, p. 103.
- ^ Valerius Maximus, xi. 8. § 6.
- ^ Appian, Bellum Civile, iv. 6. § 44.
- ^ Quintilian, iv. 1. § 11; vii. 2. § 7; 3. §§ 1, 26; 4. § 1.
- ^ Tacitus, Dialogus de Oratoribus, 38.
- ^ PIR, vol. III, p. 490 (V, No. 682).
- ^ CIL X, 3389.
- ^ AE 1979, 166.
- ^ CIL V, 7769.
- ^ AE 1995, 1773.
- ^ Bakker and Galsterer-Kröll, Graffiti auf römischer Keramik im Rheinischen Landesmuseum Bonn, 547.
Bibliography
- Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Romaike Archaiologia (Roman Antiquities).
- Gaius Sallustius Crispus (Sallust), Historiae (The Histories).
- Valerius Maximus, Factorum ac Dictorum Memorabilium (Memorable Facts and Sayings).
- Marcus Fabius Quintilianus (Quintilian), Institutio Oratoria (Institutes of Oratory).
- Publius Cornelius Tacitus, Dialogus de Oratoribus (Dialogue on Oratory).
- Appianus Alexandrinus (Appian), Bellum Civile (The Civil War).
- Theodor Mommsen et alii, Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum (The Body of Latin Inscriptions, abbreviated CIL), Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften (1853–present).
- René Cagnat et alii, L'Année épigraphique (The Year in Epigraphy, abbreviated AE), Presses Universitaires de France (1888–present).
- George Davis Chase, "The Origin of Roman Praenomina", in Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, vol. VIII, pp. 103–184 (1897).
- Paul von Rohden, Elimar Klebs, & Hermann Dessau, Prosopographia Imperii Romani (The Prosopography of the Roman Empire, abbreviated PIR), Berlin (1898).
- T. Robert S. Broughton, The Magistrates of the Roman Republic, American Philological Association (1952–1986).
- Lothar Bakker and Brigitte Galsterer-Kröll, Graffiti auf römischer Keramik im Rheinischen Landesmuseum Bonn (Graffiti from Roman Pottery in the Bonn Rhineland Museum), Bonn (1975).
