Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 2.djvu/545

Rh HOSTILIUS. whole house with fire. Later times placed his sepulchre on the Velian hill. (Varr. fragm. p. 241. Bipont. ed.) That the story of Tullus Hostilius in Dionysius and Livy is the prose form of an heroic legend there seems little reason to doubt. The incidents of the Alban war, the meeting of the armies on the boundary line of Rome and Alba, the combat of the triad of brethren, the destruction of the city, the wrath of the gods, and the extinction of the Hostilian house, are genuine poetical features. Perhaps the only historical fact embodied in them is the ruin of Alba itself; and even this is mis- represented, since, had a Roman king destroyed it, the territory and city would have become Roman, whereas Alba remained a member of the Latin league until the dissolution of that confederacy in n. c. 338. Yet, on the other hand, with Hostilius begins a new era in the early history of Rome, the niytho-historical, with higher pretensions and per- haps nearer approaches to fact and personality. As Romulus was the founder and eponymus of the Ramnes or first tribe, and Tatius of the Titienses or second, so Hostilius, a Latin of Medullia, was probably the founder of the third patrician tribe, the Luceres, which, whatever Etruscan admixture it may have had, was certainly in its main element Latin. Hostilius assigned lands, added to a national priesthood, and to the patriciate, instituted new religious festivals, and, according to one account at h-ast, increased the number of the equites, all of which are tokens of permanent additions to the populus or burgherdom, and characteristics of a founder of the nation. Consistent with these glimpses of historical existence are his building the Hostilia curia, and his enclosure of the comitium. He was not therefore, like Romulus, merely an eponymus, nor, like Numa, merely an abstraction of one element, the religious phase of the common- wealth, but a hero-king, whose personality is dimly visible through the fragments of dismembered re- cord and among the luminous clouds of poetic colouring. (Dionys, iii. 1 — 36 ; Liv. i. 22 — 32 ; Cic. de Rep. ii. 17; Niebnhr, Hist, of Rome, vol, i. pp. 296—298, 346—352; Arnold, Bisi. of Rome, vol. i. pp. 15 — 19.) 3. M. Hostilius, removed the town of Salapia in Apulia from the unhealthy borders of the palus Salapina — Lago di Salpi — to a site four miles nearer the coast, and converted the lake, by drain- age, into the harbour of the new town. (Vitruv. i. 4. p. 30. Bipont. ed.) 4. C. Hostilius was sent by the senate to Alexandria in b. c. 168 to interpose as legatus be- tween Antiochus Epiphanes, king of Syria [Anti- ocHUS, IV.] and Ptolemy Physcon and Cleopatra, the sovereigns of Egypt. [Cleopatra, No. 6.] (Liv. xliv. 19, 29.) 5. Tullus Hostilius, a creature of M. An- tony's, and tribune elect of the plebs for B.C. 43. Cicero plays upon his name, as befittingly affixed to the gate — probably of the Curia Hostilia. {Phi- lipp. xiii. 12. § 26.) 6. Hostilius, a cynic philosopher, banished by Vespasian a. d, 72 — 3. (Dion Cass. Ixvi. 13 ; comp. Suet. Vesp. 1.3.) [W. B. D.] HOSTI'LIUS CATO. 1. A. Hostilius Cato, was praetor in b. c. 207 (Liv. xxvii. 35, 36), and obtained Sardinia for his province, (xxviii. 10.) In 201, after the evacuation of Italy by the Car- thaginians, the senate named Hostilius one of ten j HOSTILIUS. 531 commissioners for re-apportioning the demesne lands of Rome in Samnium and Apulia (xxxi. 4). In 190 he was legatus of L. Scipio Asiaticiis,and was involved with him in the charge of taking bribes from Antiochus the Great. Hostilius in b. c. 187 was convicted of receiving for his own share from the king of Syria 40 pounds of gold and 403 of silver. He gave sureties for his appearance ; but since Scipio, a greater defaulter, eluded punishment, Hostilius probably escaped also, (xxxviii. 55, 58.) 2. C. HosTiLiusCATO,brotherof the preceding, and his colleague in the praetorship b. c. 207. After several changes in his appointment, the senate at length directed Hostilius to combine in his own person the offices of praetor urbanus and praetor peregrinus, in order that the other praetors of the year might take the field against Hannibal (Liv. xxvii. 35, 30.) 3. L. Hostilius Cato, was one of the com- missioners [Hostilius Cato, No. 1] for re- dividing the demesne lands of Rome in Samnium and Apulia B.C. 201 (Liv. xxxi. 4), and sub- sequently legatus of L. Scipio Asiaticus in the Syrian war, B. c. 1 90. L. Hostilius, as well as Aulus, was accused of taking bribes from Antiochus, but, unlike Aulus, was acquitted. (Liv. xxxviii. 55.) [W. B. D.] HOSTI'LIUS FIRMI'NUS, legatus of Marius Priscus, proconsul of the Roman province of Africa in Trajan's reign. He was involved in the charges brought against the proconsul a. D. 101 (comp. Juv. i. 49, viii. 120) of extortion and cruelty ; and, without being degraded from his rank as senator, he was prohibited the exercise of all senatorial functions. (Plin. Ep. ii. 11, 12.) [W. B. D.] HOSTI'LIUS, the proposer of the Lex Hos- tilia, of uncertain date. The old Roman law pro- hibited actions from being brought by one person in the name of another, except in the case of actions pro populo, pro libertate, and pro tutela. (Inst. 4. tit. 10. pr.) By an action joro tutela seems to be meant the case of an action brought by a tutor in the name of a ward (compare Gell. v. 13); and it was a rule of law that no third person could act for the tutor in behalf of the ward. By the Lex Hostilia, an actio furti was allowed to be brought in the name of one who was absent on the public service, military or civil ; and if the absent person were a tutor, a third person was allowed to supply his place, where his ward had received an injury, for which an actio furti was the proper remedy. This law, which exempted soldiers on foreign duty from ordinary rules of law, was pro- bably connected with the actiones Hostiiianae men- tioned by Cicero. {De Oral. i. 57.) As in an actio furti, founded upon the Lex Hostilia, the damage recovered by the nominal plaintiff ensued to the benefit of the absent soldier, a legal argument might be drawn by analogy in favour of the claim of the soldier to whom allusion is made by Cicero in the passage referred to. The father of the soldier had died during his son's absence, after having made a stranger his heir, in the erroneous belief of his son's death. The argument from ana- logy would be, that the stranger took the inherit- ance for the soldier's benefit. Hugo and others have supposed that the actiones Hostiiianae were testamentary formulae. [J. T. G.] HOSTI'LIUS. Priscian (p. 719, ed. Putsch.) quotes a single line " Saepe greges pecuum ex hibemis pastubu' pulsi "