Catia (gens)

The gens Catia was a plebeian family at Rome from the time of the Second Punic War to the 3rd century The gens achieved little importance during the Republic, but held several consulships in imperial times.^[1]

Origin of the gens

The Catii may have been of Vestinian origin; Gaius Catius, who served under Marcus Antonius, is said to have belonged to this ancient race. However, members of the family were already at Rome by the time of the Second Punic War, when Quintus Catius was plebeian aedile. The philosopher Catius was an Insuber, a native of Gallia Transpadana, and may have been a freedman of the gens, or perhaps his name arose by coincidence.^[2][3]

Members of the gens

• Quintus Catius, plebeian aedile in 210 BC, he served in the Second Punic War.^[3]
• Gaius Catius, tribunus militum in the army of Marcus Antonius, in 43 BC.^[2]
• Catius, an Epicurean philosopher, thought to have been an Insubrian Gaul; he may have been a freedman of the gens.
• Catia, mentioned by the poet Horatius.^[4]
• Tiberius Catius Asconius Silius Italicus, an epic poet, and consul in AD 68, at the end of Nero's reign.
• Catius Crispus, mentioned by the elder Seneca.^[5]
• Tiberius Catius Caesius Fronto, the son or adopted son of Silius Italicus, he was consul suffectus ex Kal. Sept. in AD 96, shortly before the assassination of the emperor Domitian; he is supposed to be the same as the orator Catius Fronto, a contemporary of Vespasian, who defended Marius Priscus, Gaius Julius Bassus, and Varenus Rufus.^[6][7][8][9]
• Catius Lepidus, a friend of the younger Plinius.^[10]
• Publius Catius Sabinus, consul in AD 216, during the reign of Caracalla; this was his second consulship, but the year of his first is not known.^[11]
• Sextus Catius Clementinus Priscillianus, consul in AD 230.^[12]
• Catia Clementina, according to an inscription, the wife of Iallius Bassus, and mother of Iallia Clementina.^[13]

See also

• List of Roman gentes

Footnotes

1. Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, William Smith, Editor.
2. Marcus Tullius Cicero, Epistulae ad Familiares, x. 23.
3. Titus Livius, Ab Urbe Condita, xxvii. 6, 43, xxviii. 45.
4. Quintus Horatius Flaccus, Satirae, 1, 2, 95 sq.
5. Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Suasoriae, 2, 16.
6. Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus, Epistulae, ii. 11, iv. 9, vi. 13.
7. Prosopographia Imperii Romani Saec. I.II.III., vol. i. no. 468.
8. John D. Grainger, Nerva and the Roman Succession Crisis, A.D. 96-99 (2003).
9. Niebuhr, in his Life of Cornelius Fronto, supposes him to be the same Fronto spoken of by Juvenal, who owned the house of the poet Horatius.
10. Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus, Epistulae, 4, 7.
11. Codex Justinianus, 2. tit. 19. s. 7; 9. tit. 32. s. 3, et alibi.
12. Prosopographia Imperii Romani Saec. I.II.III., vol. i. no. 471.
13. Prosopographia Imperii Romani Saec. I.II.III., vol. i. no. 476.

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Smith, William, ed. (1870). "^{article name needed}". Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology.