Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 2.djvu/313

Rh GRANIA GENS. GRA'CILIS, TURRA'NIUS, a native of Africa, cited by Pliny in his Elenchos or summary of the materials of his Natural History (iii. ix. xviii). Gracilis reckoned fifteen miles as the length, and five as the breadth, of the Straits of Gibraltar. (Plin. //. A^. iii. 1.) [W. B. D.] GRADI'VUS, i. e. the striding or marching, a surname of Mars, who is hence called gradivus pater and rex gradivus. Mars Gradivus had a temple outside the porta Capena on the Appian road, and it is said that king Numa appointed twelve Salii as priests of this god. The surname is probably derived from gradior, to march, or march out, and we know that the soldiers, when they marched out, sometimes halted near his temple. (Liv. i. 20, vii. 23 ; Serv. ad Je7i. iii. 35 ; Ov. Fast vi. 191, &c. ; Fest, s. v. Gradivus.) [L. S.] GRAEAE {rpa7ai), that is, " the old women."" were daughters of Phorcys and Ceto. They had grey hair from their birth. Hesiod (Theog. 270, &c.) mentions only two Graeae, viz. Pephredo and Enyo ; Apollodorus (ii. 4. § 2) adds Deino as a third, and Aeschylus {Prom. 819) also speaks of three Graeae. The Scholiast on Aeschylus [From. 793) describes the Graeae, or Piiorcides, as he calls them, as having the figure of swans, and he says that the three sisters had only one tooth and one eye in common, which they borrowed from one another when they wanted them. It is com- monly believed that the Graeae, like other mem- bers of the family of Phorcys, were marine divi- nities, and personifications of the white foam seen on the waves of the sea. (Comp. GoRGO and Per- seus.) [L. S.] GRAECEIUS, a friend of Cicero, who apprised him, on the information of C. Cassius, of a design to send a party of soldiers to his house at Tuscu- lum. As this caution resembles a similar warning from M. Varro, Graeceius must have written to Cicero at the end of May, or the beginning of June, B. c. 44, (Cic. ad Ait. xv. 8, comp. ib. 5.) Cicero refers M. Brutus for information to Graeceius {ad Fam. xi. 7). [W. B. D.] GRAECI'NUS, JU'LIUS, was put to death by Caligula because it was inexpedient for a tyrant to have so virtuous a subject. (Senec. de Benef. ii. 21.) Seneca records some terse and pithy sayings of Graecinus {I. c. and Ep. 29). The name Graecinus occurs in the Fasti among the consules suffecti of the year a. d. 16, and in Pliny {H. N. Flench, xiv. xv. xvi. xvii. xviii, and xiv. 2. § 33). From the contents of the books for which Pliny consulted the writings of Graecinus, he appears to have written on botany or viticulture. [W.B.D.] GRAECUS (TpatKys), a son of Thessalus, from whom the Greeks derived the name of TpaiKol {Graeci.) (Steph. Byz. s.v. TpaiKSs ; comp. Aris- tot. Meteorol. i. 14 ; Callim. ap. Strab. v. p. 216.) [L.S.] GRA'NIA GENS, plebeian. Although some of its members, under the republic, rose to senatorial rank (Pint. Mar. 35), and under the empire, when military superseded civil distinctions, to high sta- tions in the army and the provinces (Tac. Ann. i. 74), it never attained the consulship. The Grania Gens was, however, well-known from the age of the poet Lucilius, b, c. 148 — 103. From a com- parison of Cicero {in Verr. v. 59) with Plutarch {Mar. 35), and Caesar {B.C. iii. 71), the Granii seem to have been settled at Puteoli. Under the republic Gnmius appears without a cognomen, with GRANIUS. 299 the exception of that of Flaccus, in the time of Julius Caesar ; but under the empire we meet with the surnames Licinianus, Marcellus, Mar- ciANUs, Serenus, Silvanus. [W. B. D.j COIN OF GRANIA GENS. GRA'NIANUS, JU'LIUS, a Roman rheto- rician of the time of Alexander Severus, who was instructed by him in rhetoric. He wrote decla- mations, which were still extant in the time of Aelius Lampridius. {Alex. Sev. 3.) [L. S.] GRANI'CUS {TpaviKos a river god of Mysia, is described by Hesiod {TJieng. 342) as a son of Oceaniis and Thetys. But according to Stephanus Byzantinus (s. v. FpaiKos), the name Granicus was derived by some from Graecus, the son of Thes- salus. [L. S.] GRA'NIUS. 1. Q, Granius, a clerk employed by the auctioneers at Rome to collect the money at sales. His wit and caustic humour rendered him famous among his contemporaries, and have trans- mitted his name to posterity. Although his occu- pation was humble (comp. Hor. Ep. i. 7. 56), his talents raised him to the highest society in Rome (Cic. ad Fam. ix. 15 ; Schol. Bob., pro Plane, p. 259, Orelli) ; the satirist Lucilius made frequent mention of him (Cic, Brut. 43, ad Att. vi. 3), and the name Granius became a proverbial expression for a man of wit. Cicero remarks that the only event at all memorable in the tribuneship of L. Licinius Crassus the oiator [Crassus, No. 23] was his supping with Granius {Brut. 43), Some of the replies of Granius are recorded by Cicero {de Oral. ii. 60, 62). They may be denominated puns, and are not always intelligible in another language. In B. c. Ill, the consuls P. Cornelius Scipio Nasica, and L. Calpurnius Bestia [Bestia, No. 1.], sus- pended all public business, that the levies for the war with Jugurtha might proceed without inter- ruption. Scipio, seeing Granius idle in the fonun, asked him " whether he grieved at the auctions being put off? " " No," was the clerk's reply ; "but I am at the legations being put off." The point of the reply lies in the double meaning of '"'' rejedae" in the original; the senate had sent more than one fruitless embassy {legatio) to Ju- gurtha, who bribed both the legati and the senate. In B. c. 91, the celebrated tribune of the plebs, M. Livins Drusus [Drusus, No. 6,], meeting Granius, asked him " How speeds your business? " " Nay, Drusus," rejoined the auction-clerk, " how speeds yours ? " Drusus being at the time unable to perfonn his promises to the Itivlian allies and sub- jects of Rome. C'atulus, Crassus, and Antonius, and the leading men of all parties at Rome in the seventh century of the city, were in turn the objects of Granius' licence of speech. (Cic. pro Plane. 14,) 2, 3. Cn. and Q, Granii, two brothers of sena- torian rank at Rome in B.C. 87. One of them was step-son to C. Marius. The two Granii were pro- scribed with Marius on Sulla's first occupation of Rome in that year. One of these brothers, the step-son, accompanied Marius in his flight from the city, was separated from him in the neighbour-