Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 1.djvu/881

Rh COSCONIUS. Athana, derived from the promontory of Corj-pha- sion. on which she had a sanctuary. (Paus. iv. 36. § 2.) [L. S.] COKYTHA'LLIA {Kopv9aXXla), a surname of Artemis at Sparta, at whose festival of the Tithe- nidia the Spartan boys were carried into her sanc- tuary. (Athen. iv. p. 139.) [L. S.] CO'RYTHUS (Kjpu0oj). 1. An Italian hero, a son of Jupiter, and husband of Electra, the daughter of Atlas, by whom he became the father of .Jasius and Dardanus. He is described as king of Tuscia, and as the founder of Corythus. (Cor- tona; Serv. ad Aen. iii. 167, vii. 207, x. 719.) 2. A son of Paris and Oenone. He loved Helena and was beloved by her, and was therefore killed by his own father. (Parthen. Erot. 34.) Accordintr to other traditions, Oenone made use of him for the purpose of provoking the jealousy of Paris, and thereby causing the ruin of Helena. (Conon, Narrat. 22 ; Tzetz. ad Lycoph. 57.) Others agjiin call Corythus a son of Paris by Helena. (Dictys. Cret. v. 5.) There are four other mythical personages of this name. (Ptolem. Heph. ii. p. 311 ; Ov. Met. v. 125, xii. 290 ; Paus. i. 4. § 6.) [L. S.] COSCO'NIA GENS, plebeian. Members of tliis gens are first mentioned in the second Punic war, but none ever obtained the honours of the consulship : the first who held a curule office was M. Cosconius, praetor in B. c. 135. [Coscoxius.] COSCO'NIUS. 1. M. Cosconius, military tribune in the army of the praetor P. Quinctilius Varus, fell in the battle fought with Mago in the land of the Insubrian Gauls, B. c. 203. (Liv. xxx. 18.) 2. M. Cosconius, perhaps grandson of the pre- ceding, praetor in b. c. 135, fought successfully with the Scordisci in Thrace. (Liv. Epit. 56.) 3. C. Cosconius, praetor in the Social war, B. c. 89, distinguished himself in the command of one of the Roman armies. According to Livy {Epit. 75) Cosconius and Lucceius defeated the Samnites in battle, slew Marius Egnatius, the most distinguished of the enemy's generals, and received the surrender of very many towns. Ap- pian {B. C. i. 52) says, that Cosconius burnt Sala- pia, took possession of Cannae, and then proceeded to besiege Canusium ; but a Samnite army came to the relief of the town, which defeated Cosconius and obliged him to fall back upon Cannae. Tre- batius, the Samnite general, following up his ad- vantage, crossed the Aufidus, but was attacked, immediately after his passage of the river, by Cos- conius, defeated with a loss of 15,000 men, and fled with the remnant to Canusium. Hereupon, Cosconius marched into the territories of the Lari- nates, Venusini, and Apulians, and conquered the Poediculi in two days. Most modem commenta- tors identify Egnatius and Trebatius, and suppose that Appian has made a mistake in the name (Schweigh. ad App. I. c.) ; but Livy and Appian probably speak of two different battles. The above-named Cosconius seems to be .the same with the C. Cosconius who was sent into Illyricum, with the title of proconsul, about a c. 78, and who conquered a great part of Dalmatia, took Salonae, and, after concluding the war, re- turned to Rome at the end of two years' time. ( Eutrop. vi. 4 ; Oros. v. 23 ; comp. Cic. pro Clu- ent. 35.) 4. C. Cosconius Calidianus, adopted from COSMAS. 0G3 the Calidia gens, a Roman orator of little merit, distinguished for his vehement action and gesticu- lation (Cic. Brut. 69), is perhaps the same person a« the preceding or succeeding. 6. C. Cosconius, praetor in b. c. 63, the same year that Cicero was consul, obtained in the fol- lowing year the province of Further Spain, with the title of proconsul, and was, it seems, on his return accused of extortion, but acquitted. He was one of the twenty commissioners appointed in B. c. 59 to carry into execution the agrarian law of Julius Caesar for dividing the public lands in Campania, but he died in this year, and his vacant place was offered to Cicero by Caesar, who wished to withdraw him from the threatened at- tack of Clodius. This offer, however, was refused by Cicero. (Cic. pro Sidl. 14, in Vaiin. 5 ; comp. Val. Max. viii. 1. ($ 8 ; Cic. ad Att. ii. 19, ix. 2, a; Quintil. xii. 1. $ 16.) 6. C. Cosconius, tribune of the plebs in B. c. 59, when he was one of the colleagues of P. Vati- nius, aedile in 57, and one of the judices in the following year, 56, in the trial of P. Sextius. In the same year, C. Cato, the tribune of the plebs, purchased of Cosconius some bestiarii which the latter had undoubtedly exhibited the year before in the games of his aedileship. It seems that Cosconius subsequently obtained the aedileship, for Plutarch states, that Cosconius and Galba, two men of praetorian rank, were murdered by Cae- sar's soldiers in the mutiny in Campania, B. c. 47, and we know of no other Cosconius who is likely to have been praetor. (Cic. in Vaiin. 7, ad Q. Fr. ii. 6; Plut. Caes. 51 ; comp. Dion. Cass. xlii. 52, )8ouA€UTas hio.) 7. Cosconius, a writer of Epigrams in the time of Martial, attacked the latter on account of the length of his epigrams and their lascivious nature. He is severely handled in two epigrams of Martial, (ii. 77, iii. 69 ; comp. Weichert, Poctarum Latin- orum Reliquiae., p. 249, &c.) Varro speaks {L. L. vi. 36, 89, ed. Miiller) of a Cosconius who wrote a grammatical work and an- other on "Actiones," but it is uncertain who he was. It is also doubtful to which of the Cosconii the following coin refers. It contains on the ob- verse the head of Pallas, with L. Cosc. M. f., and on the reverse Mars driving a chariot, with L. Lie. Cn. Dom. It is therefore supposed that this Cosconius was a triumvir of the mint at the time that L. Licinius and Cn. Domitius held one of the higher magistracies ; and as we find that they were censors in b. c. 92, the coin is referred to that year. (Eckhel. v. p. 196.) COSINGAS, a Thracian chief, and priest of Juno, whose stratagem for securing the obedience of his people is related by Polyaenus. {Stratag. vii. 22.) [P. S.] COSMAS (Koo-juos), a celebrated physician, saint, and martyr, who lived in the third and fourth centuries after Christ. He is said to have been the brother of St Damianus, with who.se