The Sulpicii made regular use of only four praenomina: Publius, Servius, Quintus, and Gaius. The only other praenomen appearing under the Republic is Marcus, known from the father of Gaius Sulpicius Peticus, five times consul during the fourth century BC. The last of the Sulpicii known to have held the consulship, in the second century AD, was named Sextus, a praenomen otherwise unknown in this gens.[1]
Branches and cognomina
During the Republic, several branches of the Sulpician gens were identified by numerous cognomina, including Camerinus, Cornutus, Galba, Gallus, Longus, Paterculus, Peticus, Praetextatus, Quirinus, Rufus, and Saverrio. In addition to these cognomina, we meet with some other surnames belonging to freedmen and to other persons under the Empire. On coins we find the surnames Galba, Platorinus, Proclus, and Rufus.[1]
Camerinus was the name of an old patrician family of the Sulpicia gens, which probably derived its name from the ancient town of Cameria or Camerium, in Latium. Many of them bore the agnomen Cornutus, from a Latin adjective meaning "horned". The Camerini frequently held the highest offices in the state in the early times of the Republic; but after 345 BC, when Servius Sulpicius Camerinus Rufus was consul, we do not hear of them again for upwards of three hundred years, till Quintus Sulpicius Camerinus obtained the consulship in AD 9. The family was reckoned one of the noblest in Rome in the early times of the Empire.[2]
The Praetextati appear in the second half of the fifth century BC. The family appears to have been a small one, descended from the Camerini. It probably derived its name from one of several related meanings. Praetextus commonly referred to clothing with a decorative border, and especially to the toga praetexta, a toga with a purple border worn by boys and magistrates. Something veiled or concealed could also be described as praetextatus.[3][4]
The Sulpicii Longi flourished during the fourth century BC, from the time of the Gallic sack of Rome in 390 to the period of the Samnite Wars. The cognomen Longus may have been bestowed upon the ancestor of this family because he was particularly tall.[5][6]
The surname Rufus, meaning "red", probably referred to the color of the hair of one of the Sulpicii, and may have begun as a cadet branch of the Camerini, as both cognomina were united in the consul of 345 BC.[7] Several Sulpicii bearing this surname appear towards the end of the Republic, but as some appear to have been patricians and others plebeians, they may have constituted two distinct families.[8][9]
The Sulpicii Galli were a family of the second and third centuries BC. Their cognomen may refer to a cock, or to a Gaul. The greatest of this family, Gaius Sulpicius Gallus, was a successful general and statesman, as well as an orator and scholar much admired by Cicero.[10]
The Sulpicii Galbae first came to prominence during the Second Punic War, and remained distinguished until the first century AD, when Servius Sulpicius Galba claimed the title of Emperor.[11]Suetonius gives four possible explanations of this surname: that the first of the family burnt a town he had besieged, using torches smeared with galbanum, a type of gum; or that, chronically ill, he made regular use of a type of remedy wrapped in wool, known as galbeum; or that galba was a Gallic word for someone very fat; or instead that he resembled a galba, a grub or caterpillar.[12] The surname may also share a common root with the adjective galbinus, a greenish-yellow color.[13]
Members
This list includes abbreviated praenomina. For an explanation of this practice, see filiation.
Sulpicii Camerini
Publius Sulpicius Camerinus Cornutus, father of the consul of 500 BC.[14]
Servius Sulpicius Paterculus, the father of Sulpicia, who dedicated the temple of Venus Verticordia.[71]
Sulpicia Ser. f., who married Quintus Fulvius Flaccus, was thought to be the chastest woman in Rome, selected to dedicate the temple of Venus Verticordia in 113 BC.[72][73]
Sulpicii Galli
Servius Sulpicius Gallus, grandfather of the consul of 243 BC.[74]
Gaius Sulpicius Ser. f. Gallus, father of the consul of 243 BC.[74]
Gaius Sulpicius C. f. Ser. n. Gallus, consul in 243 BC.[75][76][74]
Gaius Sulpicius C. f. Gallus, father of the consul of 166 BC.[77]
Servius Sulpicius Galba, as curule aedile in 189 BC, he used the fines collected by his office to dedicate twelve gilt shields in the temple of Hercules. He was praetor urbanus in 187, and an unsuccessful candidate for the consulship in 185.[94][95]
Gaius Sulpicius Galba, praetor urbanus in 171 BC.[96][97]
Gaius Sulpicius Ser. f. (Ser. n.) Galba, a minor historian, and grandfather of the emperor Galba; he held the praetorship, but the year is uncertain.[100]
Sulpicius Flavus, a companion of the emperor Claudius, whom he assisted in the composition of his historical works.[166]
Gaius Sulpicius Hyginus, a resident of Pompeii in Campania, and the former master of Gaius Sulpicius Heraclida.[167]
Gaius Sulpicius Heraclida, the freedman of Gaius Sulpicius Hyginus at Puteoli in Campania, was the husband of Harmonia, and probably the father of Gaius Sulpicius Faustus, a banker at Pompeii during the middle of the first century. Gaius Sulpicius Onirus, also a banker at Pompeii, might be a younger son or grandson.[167]
Gaius Sulpicius (C. f.) Faustus, a banker at Pompeii during the middle of the first century, together with Gaius Sulpicius Onirus, probably either his younger brother or his son. He was probably the son of the freedman Gaius Sulpicius Heraclida. Gaius Sulpicius Cinnamus was his freedman, and acted as his agent.[167]
Gaius Sulpicius (C. f.) Onirus, a banker at Pompeii during the middle of the first century, together with Gaius Sulpicius Faustus, either his younger brother or perhaps his son. He was probably either the son or grandson of Gaius Sulpicius Heraclida.[168][167]
Gaius Sulpicius C. l. Cinnamus, the freedman of Gaius Sulpicius Faustus, a banker at Pompeii in the middle of the first century. He acted as agent for Faustus, while a Gaius Sulpicius Eutychus, also a freedman of this family, acted on behalf of Cinnamus.[169]
Gaius Sulpicius (C. l.) Eutychus, a freedman who acted as agent on behalf of the freedman Gaius Sulpicius Cinnamus, part of a banking family at Pompeii during the middle of the first century.[170]
Sulpicia, a poet who lived during the latter part of the first century. Her love poetry, addressed to her husband, Calenus, were admired by Martial, Ausonius, and Sidonius Apollinaris. A satire upon the edict of Domitian banishing philosophers from Italy, found among the works of Ausonius, is generally attributed to her.[173][174][175][176][177]
^His surname is attested only by Valerius Maximus, leading some scholars to question its authenticity, as this Sulpicius was a plebeian, and presumably unrelated to the jurist Servius Sulpicius Rufus, a patrician.[8][9]
^Sometimes referred to as "Servius Sulpicius Lemonia Rufus, although "Lemonia" was his voting tribe, rather than his personal name.
^Broughton gives Publius Sulpicius Rufus, and does not mention either in 36.
References
^ abcDictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. III, p. 945 ("Sulpicia Gens").
^Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. I, p. 590 ("Camerinus").
^Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. III, pp. 515, 516 ("Praetextatus").
^Cassell's Latin & English Dictionary, s. v. "praetextatus".
^Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. II, p. 806 ("Sulpicius Longus").
^Cassell's Latin & English Dictionary, s. v. "longus".
^Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. III, pp. 945–947 ("Sulpicius Rufus").
^ abBadian, "The Clever and the Wise", pp. 6–7 (and note 6).
^Cicero, De Oratore, i. 10, 13, 53, 60, ii. 2, 65, iii. 7, Brutus, 22–24, 33, 86, 97, Orator ad M. Brutum, 30, Epistulae ad Atticum, xii. 5, Pro Murena, 28, Tusculanae Quaestiones, i. 3, Academica Priora, ii. 16, De Republica, iii. 30, Rhetorica ad Herennium, iv. 5.
Valerius Maximus, Factorum ac Dictorum Memorabilium (Memorable Facts and Sayings).
Quintus Asconius Pedianus, Commentarius in Oratio Ciceronis In Toga Candida (Commentary on Cicero's Oration In Toga Candida), Commentarius in Oratio Ciceronis Pro Scauro (Commentary on Cicero's Oration Pro Scauro).
Lucius Cassius Dio Cocceianus (Cassius Dio), Roman History.
Aelius Lampridius, Aelius Spartianus, Flavius Vopiscus, Julius Capitolinus, Trebellius Pollio, and Vulcatius Gallicanus, Historia Augusta (Augustan History).
Johann Christian Wernsdorf, Poëtae Latini Minores (Minor Latin Poets), Altenburg, Helmstedt (1780–1799).
Barthold Georg Niebuhr, The History of Rome, Julius Charles Hare and Connop Thirlwall, trans., John Smith, Cambridge (1828), Lectures on the History of Rome, (ed. L. Schmitz), Taylor, Walton, and Maberly, London (1849)..
Henricus Meyerus, Oratorum Romanorum Fragmenta ab Appio inde Caeco usque ad Q. Aurelium Symmachum (Fragments of Roman Orators from Appius Claudius Caecus to Quintus Aurelius Symmachus), L. Bourgeois-Mazé, Paris (1837).
Richard J. Evans, "Reviewed Work: The Patrician Tribune: Publius Clodius Pulcher by J. Jeffrey Tatum", in Mnemosyne, 4th series, vol. 55, No. 6, pp. 764–767 (2002), JSTOR4433399.
