Herennia (gens)

Coin of Marcus Herennius. The obverse features the goddess Pietas, while the reverse depicts Amphinomus carrying his father to safety from the eruption of Mount Aetna.[lower-roman 1]

The gens Herennia was a plebeian family at Rome. Members of this gens are first mentioned among the Italian nobility during the Samnite Wars, and they appear in the Roman Fasti beginning in 93 BC. In Imperial times they held a number of provincial offices and military commands. The empress Herennia Etruscilla was a descendant of this gens.[3][4][5][6][7]

The extensive mercantile interests of the Herennii are attested by several authors, who describe the family's participation in the Sicilian and African trade, and especially their involvement in purchasing and exporting silphium, a medicinal herb of great value in antiquity, which grew only along a short stretch of the African coast, and defied all attempts to cultivate it.[lower-roman 2][8] The Herennian interest in trade is attested by the surname Siculus (a Sicilian),[9] the settlement of a merchant named Herennius at Leptis Magna,[10] the legend of the founding of a temple to Hercules at Rome,[11][12] and a coin of the gens bearing a representation of the goddess Pietas on the obverse, and on the reverse Amphinomus carrying his father, a reference to the legend of the two brothers of Catana, who escaped an eruption of Mount Aetna carrying their aged parents.[1][2]

Origin

The Herennii were originally Samnites from Campania, but they were absorbed into the Roman state following the Samnite Wars.[13][14][15][16] The nomen Herennius appears to be a patronymic surname, as Herennius was an Oscan praenomen. The Marii were their hereditary clientes.[17] Livy mentions a Herennius who was one of the leading members of the senate of Nola in Campania, and many of the Herennii remained in this region of Italy; a Marcus Herennius was decurion of Pompeii about 63 BC.[18] The Herennii preserved a Sabellic custom by assuming matronymic and occasionally gamonymic surnames, the arrangement of which could vary considerably.[7] Livy records an example of this in connection with the panic over the discovery of the Bacchanalia at Rome in 186 BC: Minius Cerrinius was the son of a Cerrinius and Minia Paculla;[lower-roman 3] after marrying Herennia, he became Herennius Cerrinius.[19] Herennius Etruscus Messius Decius was the son of the emperor Decius and Herennia Etruscilla.[7]

Praenomina

The Herennii of the Republic favoured the praenomina Gaius, Marcus, and Lucius, the three most common names throughout Roman history. At least one was named Titus, also among the most common praenomina.

Branches and cognomina

In the time of the Republic, the cognomina found for the Herennii include Balbus, Bassus, Cerrinius, Pontius, and Siculus. Many other surnames occur in Imperial times.[7] Balbus and Bassus were common surnames, the former originally referring to one who stammers, and the latter to one inclined to stoutness.[20] Cerrinius and Pontius were Samnite nomina, the latter perhaps cognate with the Latin Quinctius. Siculus refers to an inhabitant of Sicily, where some of the Herennii carried on their trade.[21][22] Picens, attributed to the consul of 34 BC, would, if accurate, suggest that a branch of the Herennii had settled in Picenum.[23]

Members

Bust of the empress Herennia Etruscilla, from the National Museum at the Palace of Massimo, Rome.
This list includes abbreviated praenomina. For an explanation of this practice, see filiation.

Footnotes

  1. From the Tale of the Two Brothers of Catana, or Pii Fratres, who were regarded as the model of filial piety. Amphinomus carried his father; Anapias (not pictured) carried his mother. They refused to abandon their parents even when it seemed that the lava was about to overtake them due to their burden; but miraculously the lava parted and they were saved.[1] Many copies of this coin still exist.[2]
  2. For uncertain reasons, silphium disappeared by the reign of Nero, who is said to have received the last stalk of it as a curiosity; factors in its disappearance probably included overharvesting and a brief fashion for animals fed upon it. The identity of silphium has never been satisfactorily established, although it is depicted on a number of coins from Cyrene; it is generally supposed to have been a variety of Ferula, possibly extinct, but perhaps identical with still extant species, such as Ferula tingitana. These plants resemble depictions of silphium, and share some of the medicinal properties that were ascribed to it.
  3. Livy refers to her as Paculla Annia.
  4. Born Minius Cerrinius; he apparently assumed the nomen Herennius as a gamonymic surname following his marriage to a Herennia.
  5. Sempronius was easily persuaded to prosecute Caelius, who had previously prosecuted Lucius Calpurnius Bestia, supposed by some to have been Sempronius' adoptive father, on a charge of ambitus (bribery). Clodia, meanwhile, is traditionally identified with Lesbia, the lover of Catullus, whose attributes accord somewhat with Cicero's description of Clodia in Pro Caelio.
  6. "When the order was issued, [Herennius] asked, 'How shall I present myself at home? What can I say to my father?' 'Tell him,' replied Augustus, 'that you did not like me.' Herennius had been scarred on the forehead by a stone, and boasted of it as an honourable wound. But Augustus counselled him: 'Herennius, next time you run away, do not look behind you.' "[43]

See also

List of Roman gentes

References

  1. 1 2 Claudian, Carmina Minora, "On the Statues of the Two Brothers at Catana".
  2. 1 2 Eckhel, vol. I, p. 203, vol. V, p. 224.
  3. Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, xviii. 16.
  4. Tacitus, Historiae, iv. 19.
  5. Cassius Dio, lxvii. 13.
  6. Pliny the Younger, Epistulae, vii. 33.
  7. 1 2 3 4 Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. II, p. 406 ("Herennia Gens").
  8. 1 2 Pliny the Elder, Naturalis Historia, xix. 3.
  9. Valerius Maximus, ix. 12. § 6.
  10. Cicero, In Verrem, i. 5, v. 59.
  11. 1 2 Macrobius, Saturnalia, iii. 6.
  12. 1 2 Servius, Ad Aneidem, viii. 363.
  13. Livy, ix. 3, iv. 37, vii. 38, xxxix. 13.
  14. Appian, Bellum Samniticum, 4. § 3.
  15. Cicero, Brutus 45; Epistulae ad Atticum i. 18, 19.
  16. Sallust, Historiae, ii.
  17. 1 2 Plutarch, "The Life of Marius", 5.
  18. Pliny the Elder, Naturalis Historia, ii. 51.
  19. Livy, xxxix. 13.
  20. Chase, p. 110.
  21. Chase, p. 114.
  22. The New College Latin & English Dictionary, "Siculus".
  23. 1 2 Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. II, p. 408 ("Herennius", no. 15).
  24. Livy, xxi. 25.
  25. Polybius, iii. 40.
  26. Broughton, vol. I, p. 240.
  27. Livy, xxiii. 43, 44.
  28. Livy, xxxix. 13, 19.
  29. Valerius Maximus, ix. 12. § 6.
  30. Capitoline Fasti.
  31. Obsequens, 112.
  32. Cicero, Brutus, 45; Pro Murena, 17.
  33. Sallust, Historiae, ii, iii. fragmenta p. 215 (ed. Gerlach).
  34. Plutarch, "The Life of Pompeius", 18.
  35. Zonaras, x. 2.
  36. Cicero, In Verrem i. 13. § 39.
  37. Cicero, In Verrem, i. 5, v. 59.
  38. Rhetorica ad Herennium, i. 1, ii. 1, iv. 1, 56.
  39. Pliny the Elder, Naturalis Historia, ii. 51.
  40. Cicero, Epistulae ad Atticum, i. 18, 19.
  41. Asconius, Commentary on Pro Milone, p. 35 (ed. Orelli).
  42. Cicero, Epistulae ad Familiares, x. 32.
  43. Macrobius, Saturnalia ii. 4, as quoted in the Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. II, p. 408 ("Herennius", no. 14).
  44. Cassius Dio, lxvii. 13.
  45. Tacitus, "The Life of Agricola", 2, 45.
  46. Pliny the Younger, i. 5, iv. 7, 11, vii. 19, 33.
  47. Pliny the Younger, iv. 19.
  48. Pliny the Younger, iv. 28.
  49. Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. II, p. 1108 ("Herennius Modestus").
  50. Muratori, p. 1036, 4.
  51. Maffei, Museum Veronense, p. 102.
  52. Eckhel, vol. vii. p. 347.
  53. Aurelius Victor, De Caesaribus, xxix; Epitome De Caesaribus, xxix.
  54. Zonaras, xii. 20.

Bibliography

Silver Antoninianus of the empress Herennia Etruscilla.
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