Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 2.djvu/1222

Rh 1208 NONIUS. and Tacitus, who mentions his death in A. d. 60, praises liis character as well as his talents. (Quinctil. x. 1. § 102 ; Plin. Epist 1. 1.3 ; Plin. H. N. xxviii. 2. s. 5 ; Tac. Ann. xiv. ,Dial. de Orai. 23.) NO'NIUS. 1. A. Nonius, a candidate for the tribuneship of the plebs for jb. c. 100, was mur- dered by Glaucia and Appuleius Saturninus, because he was opposed to their party. (Appian, D. a i. 28 ; Pint. Mar. 2.9 ; Liv. Epit. Qd.) 2. Nonius, a friend of Fimbria, in whose army he was in B. c. 84, when Sulla was preparing to attack him ; but when Fimbria wished his soldiers to renew their military oath to hini, and called upon Nonius to do so first, he refused, (Appian, Mithr. 59.) 3. Nonius Struma was raised to one of the curule magistracies by Julius Caesar, but appears to have been unworthy of the honour. Hence Catullus exclaims {Carm. 52) : — " Quid est, Catulle, quid moraris emori ? Sella in curuli Struma Nonius sedet." 4. Nonius, the son of Nonius Struma [No. 3], was proscribed by M. Antonius in consequence of his possessing an opal stone of immense value. He was the grandfather of Servilius Nonianus [NoNi- ANUS]. (Plin. H. N. xxxvii. 6. s. 21.) 5. Nonius, a centurion of the soldiers, was murdered by his comrades in the Campus Martins, B. c. 41, because he endeavoured to put down some attempts at disorder and mutiny. (Appian, B. a V. 16.) 6. Nonius had the charge of one of the gates of Rome in what is called the Perusinian war, b. c. 41, and admitted L. Antonius into the city. (Appian, B. C. v. 30.) 7. Nonius Asprenas had the title of proconsul in B. c. 46, and served under Caesar in the African war, in that year, and also in the Spanish war, B. c. 45. (Auct. B Afr. 80, Hisp. 10.) 8. C. Nonius Asprenas, probably a son of the preceding, was accused, in B. c. 9, of poisoning 1 30 guests at a banquet, but the number in Pliny is probably corrupt, and ought to be thirty. The accusation was conducted by Cassius Severus, and the defence by Asinius Pollio. The speeches of these orators at this trial were very celebrated in antiquity, and the perusal of them is strongly recommended by Quinctilian. Asprenas was an intimate friend of Augustus, and was acquitted through the influence of the emperor. (Plin. H. N. 3CXXV. 12. 6. 46 ; Suet. Aug. 56 ; Dion Cass. Iv. 4 ; Quiuct. x. 1. § 23.) In his youth, Asprenas was injured by a fall while performing in the Ludus Trojae before Augustus, and received in consequence from the emperor a golden chain, and the permission to assume the surname of Torquatus, both for himself and his posterity. (Suet. Aug. 43.) The Torquatus, to whom Horace addresses two of his poems {Carm. iv. 7, Sat. i. 5), is sup- posed by Weicliert and others, to be the same as this Nonius Asprenas, since all the Manlii Torquati appear to have perished, which was the reason probably why Augustus gave him the ancient and honourable surname of Torquatus. Some modern writers have supposed that the C. Asprenas, who was accused of poisoning, was the same as the proconsul of this name in the African war [No. 7] ; but Weichert has brought forwiu'd sufficient reasons to render it much more NONNUS. probable that he was his son. (Weichert, De Lucii Varii et Cassii Parmensis Vita^ &c., Grimai". 1836, pp. 197—199, and Excursus I., " De C. Nonio Asprenate," p. 301, &c. ; comp. Meyer, Orator. Roman. Fragm. p. 492, &c., 2nd ed.) For the other persons of the name of Nonius Asprenas, see Asprenas. 9. Nonius Receptus, a centurion, remaiuing firm to Galba, when his comrades espoused the side of Vitellius, a. d. 69, was thrown into chains by them and shortly after put to death. (Tac. Hist. i. 56, 59.) 10. Nonius Actianus, an infamous delator under Nero, was punished at the beginning of Vespasian's reign, a. d. 70. (Tac. Hist. iv. 41.) NO'NIUS MARCELLUS, the grammarian. [Marcellus.] NO'NNOSUS (NoVi/oo-os), was sent by the emperor Justinian I. on an embassy to the Aethio- pians, Ameritae, Saracens, and other Eastern nations. On his return he wrote a History of his embassy, which has perished, but an abridgment of it has been preserved by Photius {Bill. Cod. 3). From the account of Photius we learn that the father of Nonnosus, whose name was Abraham, had been also sent on an embassy to the Saracens, and that his grandfather Nonnosus had likewise been sent on a similar embassy by the emperor Anasta- sius. The abridgment of Photius has been re- printed, in the Bonn collection of the Byzantine writers, in the volume containing the fragments of Dexippus, Eunapius, &c., edited by Niebuhr and Bekker, 1829. (Fabric. Bibl. Graec. vol. vii. p. 543 ; Voss. de Hist. Graec. p. 326, ed. Wester- mann.) NONNUS (NJwos),a Greek poet, was a native of Panopolis in Egypt, and seems to have lived shortly before the time of Agathias (iv. p, 128), who mentions him among the recent (ueoi) poets. Whether he is the same person as the Nonnus whose son Sosena is recommended by Synesius to his friends Anastasius and Pylaeraenes, is uncer- tain. (Synes. Ep. ad A nasi. 43, ad Pylaem. 102.) Respecting his life nothing is known, except that he was a Christian, whence he cannot be confounded with the Nonnus mentioned by Suidas [s. v. 2a- KoixTTios). He is the author of an enormous epic poem, which has come down to us under the name of AiovvaiaKo. or BaacrapLKoi, and consists of forty- eight books. As the subject of the poem is a pagan divinity and a number of mythological stories, some writers have supposed that it was written previous to his conversion to Christianity or that it was composed in ridicule of the theology of the pagans ; but neither opinion appears to be founded on any sound argument, for it does not appear why a Christian should not have amused himself with writing a poem on pagan subjects. The poem it- self shows that Nonnus had no idea whatever of what a poetical composition should be, and it is, as Heinsius characterises it, more like a chaos than a literary production. Although the professed sub- ject of the poem is Dionysus, Nonnus begins with the story of Zeus carrying off Europa ; he proceeds to relate the fight of Typhonus with Zeus ; the story of Cadmus and the foundation of Thebes, the stories of Actaeon, Persephone, the birth of Zagreus and the deluge, and at length, in the seventh book, he relates the birth of Dionysus. The first six or seven books are so completely de- void of any connecting link, that any one of them