Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 1.djvu/772

Rh 754 CINNA. beaten" {depo^oviJTovs /col pi(po€6ovs dvaSoKds, corap. Aristot. BJiet iii. 9. § 1). But he presented many salient points, besides the character of his poems, to the attacks of comedy. Athenaeus tells U8 (xii. p, 551), that he was so tall and thin as to be obliged to wear, for the support of his body, a species of stays made of the wood of the linden tree. Hence Aristophanes {Av. 1378) calls him (piXipivQv. hence, too {Ran. 1433), he makes Eu- ripides propose to fit Cinesias, by way of wings, to a fellow-rogue, Cleocritus ; and in a fragment of the rTjpuTciJTjs (op. AtJien. L c.) he speaks of him as a fit ambassador from the Dithyrambic poets to their shadowy brethren of the craft in Hades. (Comp. Strattis, ap. Aihcn. L c. ; Dalechamp, ad loc.y and the authors there referred to.) A more legitimate ground of satire was furnished by his impiety, which was open and excessive, and his very profligate life ; and we learn from Lysias, the orator (ap. Athen. I. c), who himself attacked him in two orations, — now lost with the exception of the fragment here referred to, — that not a year passed in which he was not assailed on this score by the comic poets. He had his revenge however ; for he succeeded in procuring (probably about b. c. 390) the abolition of the Choragia, as far as regard- ed comedy, which had indeed been declining ever since the Archonship of Callias in B. c. 406. In consequence of this Strattis attacked him in his play called "Cinesias." (Schol. ad Arisi. Ran. 404 ; Fabric. BM. Grace, ii. p. 497; Bbckh, Pull. Econ. of Athens, bk. iii. ch. 22 ; Clinton, subannig 406, 388, 337.) From Lysias also {ap. AUien. I.e.) we learn, that Cinesias abandoned prudently the practice of his art, and betook himself to the trade of an inforaier, which he found a very profitable one. (Comp. Perizon. ad Ael. V. H. iii. 8, x. 6; Schol. ad Aristoph. U. cc. ; Plut. de Superst. 10 ; Harpocrat. and Suid. s. v. Kivnaias.) [E. E.] CINGE'TORIX, a Gaul, one of the first men in the city of the Treviri {Treves^ Trier). He attached himself to the Romans, though son-in-law to Indutiomarus, the head of the independent party. When this leader had been put to death by order of Caesar, he was promoted to be chief of his native city. (Caes. B. G. v. 3, 55 — 58, vi. 8.) Caesar {B. G. v. 22) mentions another Cingetorix, a chief of the Kentish Britons. [H. G. L.] CINGO'NIUS VARRO. [Varro.] CINNA, an early Roman jurist, mentioned by Pomponius (Dig. 1. tit. 2. s. 2. § 44), among the disciples of Servius Sulpicius. [T. Caesius.] He is cited by Ulpian (Dig. 23. tit. 2. s. 6), and by Javolenus. (Dig. 35, tit. 1. s. 40. § 40. ) There are no data to identify him with any of the various historical Cinnas of his age. He was later than the celebrated L. Cornelius Cinna, who was consul in B. c. 87-84 ; but may have been his son. [Cinna, No. 3,] The grandson, Cn. Com. Cinna Magnus, consul in a. d. 5, is of rather too late a date, and, moreover, is termed by Seneca {de Clem. i. 9), a stupid man, "quod nostro jurisconsultominime con- venit," says Maiansius, who seems disposed to identify the jurist with the poet C. Helvius Cinna, the author of Smyrna. (Maiansius, ad XXX. JCtos. ii. p. 143.) [J. T. G.] CINNA, CATULUS, a Stoic philosopher, a teacher of M. Aurelius, (Capitol. Anton. Phil. 3 ; Antonin. i. 13.) CINNA, CORNE'LTUS. Cinna was the name of a patrician family of the Cornelia gens. CTNNA. 1. L. Cornelius L. f. Cinna, consul in b. c. 127. (Fast. Sic.) 2. L. Cornelius L. f. L. n. Cinna, son of No. 1, the famous leader of the popular party, during the absence of Sulla in the East. (a. c. S'i — 84.) He was praetorian legate in the Marsic war. {Qac. pro Font. o^ In B. c. 87, when Sulla was about to take the command against Mithridates, he allowed Cinna to be elected consul with Cn. Octavius, on condition of his taking an oath not to alter the constitution as tlien exist- ing. (Plut. Sull. 10; Dion Cass. Frag. 117.) Yet Cinna's first act as consul was to impeach Sulla (Cic. in Cat. iii. 10, Brut. 47, Tusc. Di«} V. 19); and as soon as the general had left Italy, he began his endeavour to overpower the senate, by forming a strong popular party out of the new citizens, chiefly of the Italian states, who had lately been enrolled in the 35 old tribes, whereas they had before voted separately as eight tribes (Appian, B. C. i. 55, 56 ; Cic. Philipp. viii. 2 ; Veil. Pat. ii. 20) ; and by their aid it was pro- posed to recall Marius and his party. The other consul, Octavius, was ill fitted to oppose the energy of the popular leaders (Plut. Mar. 41, 42, Sertor. 4) ; yet Sulla had left the party of the senate so strong, that on the day of voting, Octa- vius was able to defeat his opponents in the forum, and Cinna fled the chy. He was soon joined by Sertorius and others, who assisted in raising the Italians against the party now in power at Rome ; for which the senate, by unconstitutionally depos- ing him from the consulate, had given him a very specious pretext. Cinna and his friends then marched upon Rome and invested it from the land, while Marius, having landed from Africa, blockaded it on the sea-side ; and to his life more properly belong the siege and capture of the city, with the massacre of Sulla's friends. [Marius.] Next year (b. c. 86) Cinna and Marius made themselves consuls ; but Marius dying in January, was succeeded by L. Valerius Flaccus. Him Cinna got rid of by appointing him to the command against Mithridates, hoping thereby also to provide Sulla with a new enemy. But Flaccus was killed by his legatus C. Flavius Fimbria. (Veil. Pat. ii. 23 ; Appian, B. C. i. 75.) In b. c. 85, Cinna entered on his third consulate with Cn. Papirius Carbo, an able man, who had already been of great use to the party. Sulla now threatened to return and take vengeance on his enemies ; and the next year (b. c. 84), Cinna and Carbo being again consuls, he fulfilled his threat. Cinna had assembled an army at Bnindisium, and sent part of it across to Libumia, intending to meet Sulla before he set foot in Italy ; but when he ordered the rest to follow, a mutiny arose, and in the effort to quell it he was slain. [For the sequel see Sulla.] Cinna was a bold and active man, but his bold- ness was akin to rashness, and his activity little directed by judgment. Single-handed he could do nothing ; he leant for support first on Sertorius, then on Marius, then on Carbo ; and fell at last from wanting the first quality of a general, ability to command the confidence of his troops. Velleius's character of him is more antithetical than true, (ii. 24.) 3. L. Cornelius L. f. L. n, Cinna, son of No. 2. When very young he joined M. Lepidus in overthrowing the constitution of Sulla (b. c. 7H) ; and on the defeat and death of Lepidus in Sar-