Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 3.djvu/833

Rh SILANUS. Tliese consuls gave their name to the Lex Junia Korbana, which enacted that slaves manumitted without the requisite formalities should, in certain cases, have the status of Latini : such persons were called Latini Juniani (see Diet, of Antiq. p. 693, a, 2d ed.). Tacitus speaks of Silanus as pre-emi- nently distinguished by his high nobility and elo- quence. In A. D. 20 he obtained from Tiberius the recal of his brother [No. 9J from exile. Like tlie other senators he endeavoured to gain the favour of the emperor by flattery. He proposed in A. D. 22 that all public and private documents should not bear in future the names of the consuls, but the names of those who possessed the tribuni- cian power, that is, of the emperors. In A. d. 33 his daughter Claudia, or Junia Claudilla, as she is called by Suetonius {Cal. 12), was married to C. Caesar, afterwards the emperor Caligula. Silanus was governor of Africa in the reign of Caligula ; but the suspicious tyrant feared his father-in-law, and accordingly first deprived him of all power in the province by compelling him to share the government with an imperial legatus, and afterwards compelled him to put an end to his life. Julius Graecinus, the father of Agricola, had been ordered by Caligula to accuse Silanus, but he de- clined the odious task. (Tac. Ann. ii. 69., iii. 24, 57, vi. 20, Hist. iv. 48, Agr. 4 ; Dion Cass. Ivii. 18, lix. 8; Suet. CaZ. 12, 23.) 9. D. Junius Silanus, a brother of No. 8, was one of the paramours of Julia, the granddaughter of Augustus, and voluntarily withdrew into exile when the adulteries of Julia were discovered. Tiberius allowed him to return to Rome in a. d. 20 on the intercession of his brother Marcus, but did not advance him to any of the honours of the state. (Tac. Ann. iii. 24.) 10. C. Junius Silanus, described as Flamen Martialis in the Capitoline Fasti, was consul A. D. 10, with P. Cornelius Dolabella. Judg- ing from his praenomen we may suppose him to have been a son of No. 7 ; but this is opposed to the Capitoline Fasti, in which he is described as C. F. M. N. Silanus was afterwards proconsul of Asia, and in A. d 22 was accused of malversation by the provincials. To this crime his accusers in the senate added that of treason {majestas), and it was proposed to banish him to the island of Gyaros ; but Tiberius changed the place of his exile to the less inhospitable island of Cynthus, which his sister Torquata had begged might be the place of his punishment. (Tac. Ann. iii. 66—69, iv. 15.) 11. App. Junius Silanus, was consul a. d. 28 with P. Silius Nerva. He was accused of majestas in A. D. 32, but was saved by Celsus, one of the informers. Claudius soon after his accession re- called Silanus from Spain, of which he was at that time governor, gave him in marriage Domitia Lepida, the mother of his wife Messalina, and treated him otherwise with the greatest distinction. But shortly afterwards, having refused the em- braces of Messalina, he was put to death by Claudius on the accusations of Messalina and Nar- cissus, both of whom said that they had in their dreams seen Silanus attempting to murder the emperor. (Tac. Ann. iv. 68, vi. 9, xi. 29 ; Suet. Claud. 29, 37 ; Dion Cass. Ix. 14, who calls him Caitis Appius Silanus.) One of the sons of Appius is called by Tacitus (xiii. 1) the abnepos or great- great-grandson of Augustus. It would therefore SILANUS. 821 appear that App. Silanus married Aemilia Lepida, the proneptis or great-granddaughter of Augustus. The genealogy would therefore stand thus : 1. Augustus. 2. Julia, filia, m. M. Agrippa. 3. Julia, neptis, m. L. Aemilius Paulus. 4. Lepida, proneptis, m. App. Junius Silanus. Aemilia Lepida, the wife of App. Silanus, was at an early age betrothed to the emperor Claudius long before his accession to the throne, but was divorced soon afterwards [Lepida, No. 3, where her subsequent marriage to App. Silanus ought to have been stated]. By his second wife Domitia Lepida, the mother of Messalina, App. Silanus of course had no children. Suetonius {Claud. 29) calls App, Silanus the consoceroi Claudius, because his son L. Silanus was betrothed to Octavia, the daughter of Claudius. 12. M. Junius Silanus, a son of No. 11, was consul under Claudius a. d. 46 with Valerius Asiaticus. He was born in the same year in which Augustus died, a. d. 1 4, and it is mentioned by Pliny as a singular fact that Augustus lived to see his great-great-grandson. Silanus was pro- consul of Asia at the succession of Nero in a. d. 54, and was poisoned by command of Agrippina, who feared that he might avenge the death of his brother [No. 13], and that his descent from Au- gustus might lead him to be preferred to the youthful Nero (Dion Cass, lx.27 ; Plin. H.N. vii, 11 ; Tac. Ann.xu.4). Tacitus relates (1. c.) that Silanus was so far from being ambitious, that Caligula used to call him his " pecus aurea," but Dion Cassiua (lix. 8) with more probability refers this epithet to the father-in-law of Caligula [No. 8]. 13. L. Junius Silanus, likewise a son of No. 1 1, was betrothed to Octavia, the daughter of the emperor Claudius, in a. d. 41. The emperor conferred upon him the triumphal ornaments when he was still a boy, and exhibited in his name magnificent gladiatorial games. But as Agrippina had resolved to marry Octavia to her own sou Domitius, afterwards the emperor Nero, it was necessary to put Silanus out of the way. It was easy to persuade the foolish emperor of any thing, and he therefore readily believed the charges brought against Silanus. Accordingly in A. d. 48 Silanus, who was then praetor, though he had not yet attained the legal age for the office, was ex- pelled from the senate by Vitellius, as censor, on the ground of incest with his sister Julia Calvina [Calvina] ; and he was further compelled by Claudius to resign the office of praetor. At the same time the marriage between him and Octavia was dissolved. At the beginning of the following year Octavia was married to Nero ; and Silanus, who knew that he would not be allowed to live much longer, put an end to his life on the day of their marriage. (Tac. Ann. xii. 3, 4, 8 ; Suet. Claud. 24, 29 ; Dion Cass. Ix. 5, 31.) 14. D. Junius Torquatus Silanus, probably also a son of No, 11, was consul under Claudius A. D. 53 with Q. Haterius Antoninus. He was compelled by Nero in a. d. 64 to put an end to his life, because he had boasted of being descended from Augustus. Tacitus says that he had boasted of Augustus being his atavtts ; but if he was really 00 8