Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 3.djvu/505

Rh POMPONIA GENS. their matrimonial squabbles, of which he was an eye-witness {ad Att. v. 1). When their son, young Quintus, grew up, he endeavoured to re- concile his parents, and was encouraged in his filial task by both his uncles ; but he did not meet with much success ; and Q. Cicero, after leading a miserable life with his wife for almost twenty-four years, at length divorced her at the end of B. c. 45, or in the beginning of the follow- ing year. (Corn. Nep. Att. 5 ; Cic. ad Att. i. 5, V. 1, vii. 1, 5, xiv. 10, et alibi, ad Q. Fr. iii. 1, &c.) 3. The daughter of T. Pomponius Atticus. She is also called Caecilia, because her father was adopted by Q. Caecilius, and likewise Attica. She was born in b. c. 51, after Cicero had left Italy for Cilicia. She is frequently mentioned in Cicero's letters to Atticus, and seems at an early age to have given promise of future excellence. She was still quite young when she was married to M. Vipsanius Agrippa. The marriage was ne- gotiated by M. Antony, the triumvir, probablj'' in B. c, 36. She was afterwards suspected of improper intercourse with the grammarian Q. Caecilius Epirota, a freedman of her father, who instructed her. Her subsequent history is not known. Her husband Agrippa married Marcella in B. c. 28, and accordingly she must either have died or been divorced from her husband before that year. Her daughter Vipsania Agrippina married Tiberius, the successor of Augustus. (Cic. ad Att. v. 19, vi. 1, 2, 5, vii. 2, et aiibi ; Corn. Nep. Att. 12 ; Suet. Tib. 7, de Illustr. Gramm. 16.) POMPO'NIA GRAECI'NA, the wife of A. Plautius, was accused in the reign of Claudius of practising religious worship unauthorised by the state ; but her husband Plautius, who was allowed, on account of his victories in Britain, to judge her, in accordance with the old Roman law, declared her innocent. She was probably the daughter of P. Pomponius Graecinus, consul suffectus a. d. 16. She was related to Julia, the daughter of Drusus, and granddaughter of Pomponia, the daughter of Atticus ; and she lived forty years after the death of Julia, who was executed by Claudius at the in- stigation of Messalina. (Tac. Ann. xiii. 32.) POMPO'NIA RUFPNA, a Vestal virgin in the reign of Caracalla, put to death for violation of her vow of chastity. (Dion Cass. Ixxvii. 16.) POMPO'NIA GENS, plebeian. Towards the end of the republic the Pomponii, like other Roman gentes, traced their origin to the remote times of the Roman state. They pretended to be descended from Pompo, one of the alleged sons of Numa (Plut. Num. 21) ; and they accordingly placed the image of this king upon their coins. In the earliest times the Pomponii were not dis- tinguished by any surname ; and the only family that rose to importance in the time of the republic was that of Matho ; the first member of which who obtained the consulship was M. Pomponius Matho in b. c. 233, On coins we also find the cognomens MoLO, MusA and Rufus, but these surnames do not occur in ancient writers. The other cognomens in the time of the republic, such as Atticus, were not family names, but were rather descriptive of particular individuals. An alphabetical list of them is given below, as well as of the cognomens in the imperial period, which were rather numerous. (Conip. Drumann, Ges- chiclUe Homs^ vol. v. p. 1, &c.) POMPONIUS. 493 POMPO'NIUS. 1. M. Pomponius, one of the tribunes of the plebs, elected at the abolition of the decemvirate, B. c. 449. (Liv. iii. 54.) 2. M. Pomponius, consular tribune, b.c. 399, perhaps either a son or grandson of the preceding. (Liv. V. 13.) 3. Q. Pomponius, perhaps a younger brother of the preceding, was tribune of the plebs, B.c. 395, in which year he supported the views of the senate by opposing, in conjunction with his colleague, A. Virginius, the proposition that a portion of the senate and people should settle at Veii. He and his colleague were, in consequence, accused two years afterwards, and compelled to pay a heavy fine. (Liv. v. 29, comp. cc. 24, 25.) 4. M, Pomponius, tribune of the plebs, b. c. 362, brought an accusation against L. Manlins Imperiosus, who had been dictator in the preceding year, but was compelled to drop the accusation by the son of Manlius, afterwards surnamed Tor- quatus, who obtained admittance into the tribune's house, and threatened him with immediate death if he did not swear that he would abandon the impeachment of his father. (Liv. vii. 4, 5 ; Cic. de Of. iii. 30. ; Val. Max. v. 4. § 3 ; Appian, Samn. 2.) [TORQUATUS.] 5. Sex. Pomponius, legatus of the consul Ti. Sempronius Longus in the first year of the first Punic war, B. c. 218. (Liv. xxi. 15.) 6. M. Pomponius, tribune of the plebs,- b. c. 167, opposed, with his colleague M. Antonius, the proposition of the praetor M'. Juventius Thalna, that war should be declared against the Rhodians. (Liv. xlv. 21.) Pomponius was praetor in b. c. 161, and in this year obtained a decree of the senate, by which philosophers and rhetoricians were forbidden to live in Rome. (Suet, de clar. Rhet. 1 ; Cell. xv. 11.) 7. M. Pomponius, a Roman eques, was one of the most intimate friends of C. Gracchus, and distinguished himself by his fidelity to the latter on the day of his death, b. c. 121. When Grac- chus, despairing of his life, had retired to the temple of Diana, and was going to kill himself there, Pomponius and Licinius took his sword, and induced him to fly. As they fled across the Sub- lician bridge, hotly pursued, Pomponius and Licinius turned round, in order to give their friend time for escape, and they allowed no one to pass till they fell pierced with wounds. This is the account of Plutarch ; the details are related a little diflferently by other writers. (Plut. C. Graceh. 16, 17 ; Veil. Pat. ii. 6 ; Val. Max. iv. 7. § 2 ; Aurel. Vict, de Vir. III. 65 ; comp. Cic. de Div. ii. 29.) 8. M. Pomponius, aedile b. c. 82, in the con- sulship of the younger Marius. In the scenic games exhibited by him, the actress Galeria ap- peared, who was then a child of 12 years old, and who was again brought on the stage in A. D. 9, in her 104th year, in the votive games in honour of Augustus. (Plin. H. N. vii. 49. s. 48.) 9. Cn. Pomponius, who perished in the civil war between Marius and Sulla, was an orator of some repute, and is reckoned by Cicero as holding the next place to his two great contemporaries, C. Aurelius Cotta and P. Sulpicius Rufus. His orator}' was characterised by great vehemence, and he did not express his meaning very clearly. (Cic. Brut. 57, 62, 89, 90, de Orat. iii. 13.) 10. M. Pomponius, as he is called by Plutarch (Lucidl. 15.), the conuuander of the cavalry of Lu-