Memmia (gens)

The gens Memmia was a plebeian family at Rome. The first member of the gens to achieve prominence was Gaius Memmius Gallus, praetor in 173 BC. From the period of the Jugurthine War to the age of Augustus they contributed numerous tribunes to the Republic.^[1]

Origin of the gens

The poet Vergilius linked the family of the Memmii with the Trojan hero Mnestheus. This late tradition demonstrates that by the end of the Republic, the gens had become a conspicuous branch of the Roman nobility.^[2]

Praenomina used by the gens

The main praenomina of the Memmii were Gaius, Lucius, Quintus, and Publius. There is also at least one example of Titus.

Members of the gens

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

• Gaius Memmius C. f. Quirinus, aedile prior to 216 BC, was the first to exhibit the Cerealia at Rome.^[3]
• Gaius Memmius, praetor in 173 BC, obtained Sicilia as his province.^[4]
• Lucius Memmius Gallus, appears on a coin.
• Titus Memmius, commissioner sent by the senate to hear the complaints of the Achaeans and Macedonians against the Roman magistrates, in 170 BC.^[5]
• Quintus Memmius, legate sent by the senate to the Jews circa 163 BC.^[6]
• Gaius Memmius, also called Mordax, tribunus plebis in 111 BC, bludgeoned to death by the supporters of Lucius Appuleius Saturninus and Gaius Servilius Glaucia in 100, when he was a candidate for the consulship.
• Lucius Memmius, an eminent orator, and a supporter of Gaius Marius during the time of the first and second civil wars between the parties of Marius and Sulla.^[7]
• Gaius Memmius, married a sister of Gnaeus Pompeius, under whom he served in Sicily and Hispania.^[8][9][10]
• Gaius Memmius Gemellus, tribunus plebis in 66 BC.
• Gaius Memmius, consul suffectus in 34 BC.
• Publius Memmius, a witness for the defense at the trial of Aulus Caecina in 69 BC.^[11]
• Publius Memmius Regulus, consul in AD 31, and the first husband of Lollia Paullina, afterwards the empress of Caligula.
• Gaius Memmius Regulus, probably the son of Publius Regulus and Lollia Paullina, consul in AD 63.^[12][13][14]
• Lucius Memmius Pollio, consul suffectus in AD 49.^[15]
• Quintus Aurelius Memmius Symmachus, consul in 485.

See also

• List of Roman gentes

Footnotes

1. Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, William Smith, Editor.
2. Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, William Smith, Editor.
3. Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, William Smith, Editor.
4. Titus Livius, Ab Urbe Condita, xlii. 9, 10, 27.
5. Titus Livius, Ab Urbe Condita, xliii. 5.
6. First Book of Maccabees, ii. 11.
7. Marcus Tullius Cicero, Brutus, 36, 70, 89, Pro Sexto Roscio, 32.
8. Marcus Tullius Cicero, Brutus, 36, Pro Balbo, 2.
9. Plutarchus, Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans, Pompeius, 11, Sertorius, 21.
10. Paulus Orosius, Historiarum Adversum Paganos Libri VII, v. 23.
11. Marcus Tullius Cicero, Pro Caecina, 10.
12. Fasti Capitolini.
13. Publius Cornelius Tacitus, Annales, xv. 23.
14. Jan Gruter, Inscriptiones Antiquae Totius Orbis Romani, Heidelberg (1603), p. 8.
15. Publius Cornelius Tacitus, Annales, xii. 9.

 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.