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Plaetoria gens

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A denarius of the gens depicting Fortuna and Sors, a reference to the family's Praenestine origins[1]
Denarius of L. Plaetorius Cestianus commemorating the assassination of Caesar, with the head of Brutus and a "cap of liberty" between two daggers marked "Ides of March"

The gens Plaetoria was a plebeian family at ancient Rome. A number of Plaetorii appear in history during the first and second centuries BC, but none of this gens ever obtained the consulship. Several Plaetorii issued denarii from the late 70s into the 40s, of which one of the best known alludes to the assassination of Caesar on the Ides of March, since one of the Plaetorii was a partisan of Pompeius during the Civil War.[2]

Origin

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Chase classifies the nomen Plaetorius among those gentilicia which were either of Roman origin, or which at least cannot be shown to have originated anywhere else, implying that the name is apparently of Latin derivation. Some scholars have suggested that the Plaetorii hailed from the ancient city of Tusculum in Latium.[3][4]

Praenomina

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The main praenomina of the Plaetorii were Marcus, Gaius, and Lucius, the three most common names throughout Roman history.

Branches and cognomina

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The only distinct family of the Plaetorii under the Republic bore the cognomen Cestianus, probably indicating that they were originally adopted from the Cestii, a family of Praeneste.[4] Their coins allude both to their name, depicting an athlete holding a cestus, and to a Praenestine origin, depicting Sors, the god of luck, associated with the renowned Praenestine oracle.[5][6]

Members

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

Footnotes

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  1. ^ Or Laetorius.
  2. ^ Plaetoria, Broughton contra RE, Supb. 7.398, which has Laetoria.
  3. ^ Cestianus is the most extensively documented of the Republican Plaetorii, but the dating of his offices is problematic. Crawford places his coinage as a triumvir monetalis in 69, but he was quaestor sometime before he prosecuted Fonteius in 69 BC (Cicero, Pro Fonteio, 1), and in the late Republic, a young man usually served as a moneyer before a quaestorship; see Syme, "The Sons of Crassus", in Latomus, vol. 39 (1980), pp. 403–408.</ref> Cestianus was curule aedile most likely in 67 (Cicero, Pro Cluentio, 126), when he also issued coinage. In 66, he was iudex for a quaestio de sicariis (Cicero, Pro Cluentio, 147, see also 126). Broughton conjectures the date of his praetorship based on assigning his service as a iudex to 66, and the gap that leaves room for his name on the Fasti of Macedonia. He succeeded Lucius Manlius Torquatus as governor of Macedonia in 63, and was followed by Gaius Antonius Hybrida in 62. He is called strategos (Greek στρατηγός) in an inscription from Delphi (SEG I. 165 Delphi). There is no evidence of his official position under Lentulus.

See also

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References

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  1. ^ P.G.P. Meyboom, The Nile Mosaic of Palestrina: Early Evidence of Egyptian Religion in Italy, Brill (1995), p. 161.
  2. ^ Crawford, Roman Republican Coinage, pp. 83, 86, 87, 408, 415, 418.
  3. ^ Chase, pp. 129–132.
  4. ^ a b Wiseman, New Men in the Roman Senate, p. 251.
  5. ^ McCartney, "Casting Puns on Ancient Monuments", p. 62.
  6. ^ Crawford, Roman Republican Coinage, p. 418.
  7. ^ Censorinus, De Die Natali xxiv. 3.
  8. ^ Plautus, Epidicus, 25–27.
  9. ^ Varro, De Lingua Latina, vi. 5.
  10. ^ Gellius, iii. 2.
  11. ^ Broughton, MRR2, p. 472.
  12. ^ Livy, xxxiv. 45.
  13. ^ Cicero, De Officiis, iii. 61, De Natura Deorum, iii. 74.
  14. ^ lex Julia Municipalis.
  15. ^ Plautus, Pseudolus, 303 ff, Rudens, 1380–1382 ff.
  16. ^ Broughton, MRR2, p. 472.
  17. ^ Broughton, MRR2, p. 472.
  18. ^ Livy, xlii. 26
  19. ^ Broughton, vol. 1, p. 414.
  20. ^ Broughton, MRR2, p. 494 (Senatus consultum de Agro Pergameno, with Plattorius amended to Plaetorius).
  21. ^ Valerius Maximus, ix. 2. § 1.
  22. ^ Florus, ii. 9. § 26 (without praenomen).
  23. ^ Orosius, v. 21. § 8 (as P. Laetorius).
  24. ^ Broughton, MRR2, p. 494; MRR3, p. 157.
  25. ^ Cicero, Pro Cluentio, 165.
  26. ^ Broughton, MRR2, p. 102; MRR3, p. 157.
  27. ^ Cicero, Epistulae Ad familiares, i. 8. § 1.
  28. ^ Broughton, MRR2, pp. 128, 143, 150 (note 3), 161, 162; MRR3, p. 157.
  29. ^ Ronald Syme, reviewing Broughton's MRR in Classical Philology, vol. 50, No. 2 (1955), pp. 129–130, 132.
  30. ^ SEG, I. 165 Delphi.
  31. ^ Hirtius, De Bello Alexandrino, 34.
  32. ^ Broughton, MRR2, p. 274.
  33. ^ Hirtius, De Bello Africo, 96.
  34. ^ Broughton, MRR2, p. 494.
  35. ^ Broughton, MRR2, p. 360.
  36. ^ Aelius Spartianus, "The Life of Hadrian", 4, 23.

Bibliography

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