Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 1.djvu/525

Rh BRUTUS. »nd Minerva, who burnt himself that he might not be taunted with his ugliness. (Ov. /few, 517.) 2. One of the fighters at the marriage of Phi- ncus. (Ov. Met. v. 106.) 3. A Lapith, who was slain at the marriage of Pii-ithous. (Ov. Met. xii. 260.) 4. The father of Tantalus, who had been mar- ried to Clytaemnestra before Agamemnon. The common account, however, is, that Thyestes was the father of this Tantalus. (Paus. ii. 22. § 4.) 5. A son of Tantalus, who, according to a tradi- tion of the Magnetes, had made the most ancient •tatue of the mother of the gods on the rock of Coddinos. (Paus. iii. 22. § 4.) [L. S.] BRUNI'CHIUS (Bpoui/tx^os), a chronographer of uncertain date, referred to by Joannes Malala (vol. i. p. 239), the title of whose work was eKdecris Bpovvixlov 'Puixaiov xpofoypdcpov. BRUSUS (Bpovaos), a son of Emathius, from whom Brusis, a portion of Macedonia, was believed to have derived its name. (Steph. Byz. s. v. BpoOais.) [L. S.] BRUTI'DIUS NIGER. [Niger.] BRU'TIUS (BpouTios), an historian and chro- nographer, is called by the writer of the Alexan- drian chronicle (p. 90), who quotes some things from him respecting Danae and Perseus, 6 <TO(pai- TUTos iiXTopiKos Kcu xpovorypoLtpos. He is also mentioned by Joannes Malala (vol. i. pp. 39, 326, 340) and by Ilieronymus in the Chronicle of Eu- sebius ; and Scaliger, in his notes upon this pas- sage (p. 205), has conjectured, that he may be the same as the Brutius Praesens whose daughter, Brutia Crispina, married L. Aurelius Commodus, the son of M. Aurelius : but this is quite uncer- tain. (Vossius, de Hint. Graec. p. 409, ed. Wester- niann.) BRUTTIA'NUS LUSTRICUS. [Lustricus.] BRU'TTIUS. 1. A Roman knight, for whom Cicero wrote a letter of introduction to M Acilius Glabrio, proconsul in Sicily in b. c. 46. (Cic. ad Farn. xiii. 38.) 2. A philologer, with whom M. Cicero, the son of the orator, studied at Athens, in B. c. 44. (Cic. ad Fam. xvi. 21.) BRU'TTIUS SURA. [Sura.] BRU'TULUS PA'PIUS, a man of noble rank and great power among the Samnites, who per- suaded his countrymen to undertake a second war against the Romans ; but the Samnites, after their disiisters in B. c. 322, became anxious for a peace, and resolved to deliver up Brutulus to the Romans. His corpse, however, was all that they could give their enemies; for Brutulus put an end to his own life, to avoid perishing by the hands of the Romans. (Liv. viii. 39.) BRUTUS, the name of a plebeian family of the Junia Gens, which traced its descent from the first consul, L. Junius Brutus. (Comp. Cic. J^hil. i. 6, Brut. 4.) It was denied by many of the ancients that this family could be descended from the first consul, first, because the latter was a patrician, and secondly, because his race became extinct at his death, as he had only two sons, who were executed by his own orders. (Dionys. v. 18, comp. vL 70; Dion. Cass, xliv. 12; Plut. ^rw^, 1.) Posidonius, indeed, as- serted that there was a third son, who was a child when his brothers were put to death, and that the plebeian family was descended from him ; and he even pretended to discover a likeness in many of the Bruti to the sUitue of the first consul (Plut. BRUTUS. 507 /. c.) But this tale about a third son is such an evident invention, to answer an objection that had been started by those who espoused the other side of the question, that it deserves no credence ; and nothing was more natural than that the family should claim descent from such an illustrious an- cestor, especially after the murder of Caesar, when M. Brutus was represented as the liberator of his country from tyranny, like his name-sake of old. It is, however, by no means impossible, that the fiimily may have been descended from the first con- sul, even if we take for granted that he was a pa- trician, as we know that patricians sometimes passed over to the plebeians : while this descent becomes still more probable, if we accept Niebuhr's conjecture {Rom. Hist. i. p. 522, &c.), that the first consul was a plebeian, and that the consulship was, at its first institution, shared between the two or- ders. The surname of Brutus is said to have been given to L. Junius, because he pretended idiocy in order to save himself from the last Tarquin, and the word is accordingly supposed to signify an "idiot." (Liv. i. 56; Dionys. iv. 67, who trans- lates it -^Kidios ; Nonius, p. 77.) Festus, how- ever, in a passage (s. v. Brutum) which is pointed out by Arnold {Rom. Hist. i. p. 104), tells us, that Brutus, in old Latin, was synonymous with Gra- vis ; which, as Arnold remarks, would show a connexion with fidpus. The word may, there- fore, as a surname, have been originally much the same as Severus. This conjecture we think more probable than that of Niebuhr's, who supposes it to mean a " runaway slave," and connects it with the Brettii, "revolted slaves," whence the Brutii are supposed to have derived their name (Strab. vi. p. 225 ; Diod. xvi. 15 ; Gell. x. 3) : he further observes, that this name might easily have been applied by the Tarquins to Brutus as a term of reproach. {Rom. Hist. i. pp. 63, 98, 515.) I. L. Junius Brutus, was elected consul in B. c. 509, according to the chronology of the Fasti, upon the expulsion of the Tarquins from Rome. His story, the greater part of which belongs to poetry, ran as follows : The sister of king Tarquin the Proud, married M. Brutus, a man of great wealth, who died leaving two sons under age. Of these the elder was killed by Tarquin, who covet- ed their possessions ; the younger escaped his bro- ther's fate only by feigning idiocy, whence he re- ceived the surname of Brutus. After a while, Tarquin became alarmed by the prodigy of a serpent crawling from the altar in the royal palace, and accordingly sent his two sons, Titus and Aruns, to consult the oracle at Delphi. They took with them their cousin Brutus, who propitiated the priestess with the gift of a golden stick enclosed in a hollow staff. After executing the king's com- mission, the youths asked the priestess who was to reign at Rome after Tarquin, and the reply was, " He who first kisses his mother." Thereupon the sons of Tarquin agreed to draw lots, which of them should first kiss their mother upon arriving at Rome ; but Brutus, who better understood the meaning of the oracle, stumbled upon the ground as they quitted the temple, and kissed the earth, mother of them all. Soon after followed the rape of Lucretia ; and Brutus accompanied the unfor- tunate father to Rome, when his daughter sent for him to the camp at Ardea. Brutus was pre- sent at her death, and the moment had now come