Porcia (gens)

Porcius, feminine Porcia, masculine plural Porcii, was the name (nomen) of the gens Porcia, who apparently originated in Tusculum.^[1]

During the Roman Republic, the three branches of the gens were distinguished by the cognomina Laeca, Licinus, and Cato. The most illustrious were the Catones, especially the men known in the modern era as Cato the Elder and Cato the Younger.

During the Imperial era, the cognomina Festus, Latro, and Septimus are also found as branches of the Porcii.

Porcii of the Republic

Catones

• Marcus Porcius Cato (Cato the Elder) - statesman, including consul (195 BC), proposed Lex Porcia (II).
  • Marcus Porcius Cato Licinianus - son of Cato the Elder by first wife, Licinia; soldier and jurist.
    • Marcus Porcius Cato - son of M. Porcius Cato Licinianus, consul 118 BC, died in Africa in the same year.
      • Marcus Porcius Cato Uticensis (Cato the Younger) - politician and statesman, great grandson of Cato the Elder.
        • Marcus Porcius Cato (II) - son of Cato the Younger; supporter of Brutus and Cassius, and one of Julius Caesar's assassins.
        • Cato's unnamed younger son, sent to his friend Munatius when Cato fled with Pompey (cf. Plutarch's Lives).
    • Gaius Porcius Cato - son of Marcus Porcius Cato Licinianus, father of Cato the Younger, and consul in 114 BC.
  • Marcus Porcius Cato Salonianus - son of Cato the Elder by second wife, Salonia; praetor.
    • Lucius Porcius Cato, son of M. Porcius Cato Salonianus, consul 89 BC, killed during the Social War (91–88 BC).

Laecae

• Publius Porcius Laeca (I) - tribune and proposer of Lex Porcia (I) in 199 BC, tresviri epulones in 196 BC.
• Marcus Porcius Laeca - moneyer (tresviri monetalis) in 125 BC.
• Publius Porcius Laeca (II) - tresviri monetalis in 110-109 BC, apparently tribunus plebis in 90s BC.

Licini

• Lucius Porcius Licinus - consul in 184 BC, introduced Lex Porcia (III).
• Porcius Licinus, a writer associated with Valerius Aedituus. Only one epigram and two fragments of verse in trochaic septenarius survive from his body of work.^[2]

Porcii of the Empire

• Marcus Porcius Latro, celebrated rhetorician during the reign of Augustus (died 4 BC).
• Porcius Festus, a Roman governor of Judea from approximately 58 to 62 AD.

See also

• Porcian Laws, named for their enactment under three members of the Gens Porcia

References

1. Tacitus, Annals XI.24
2. Gian Biagio Conte, Latin Literature: A History (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994, originally published 1987 in Italian), p. 139.