Sertoria gens explained

The gens Sertoria was a minor plebeian family at ancient Rome. Few members of this gens appear in history, the most illustrious of whom was the Roman general Quintus Sertorius, who defied the dictator Sulla and his allies for a decade after the populares were driven from power in Rome.^[1]

Origin

The nomen Sertorius is a patronymic surname, derived from the rare praenomen Sertor. Chase suggests that it was the equivalent of servator, meaning "one who protects" or "preserves".^{[2] [3]}

Praenomina

The Sertorii used a variety of common praenomina, including Gaius, Gnaeus, Lucius, Publius, Quintus, and Titus.

Branches and cognomina

The Sertorii of the Republic were not divided into distinct families. The general Sertorius was born at Nursia, in Sabinum, where his family had lived for several generations. In imperial times there was a family bearing the cognomen Brocchus, originally referring to someone with prominent teeth.^{[4] [5]}

Members

• Quintus Sertorius, a celebrated general in the last decades of the Republic. He fought alongside Marius and Cinna, and later established an independent state in Hispania during the dictatorship of Sulla, but was finally murdered by one of his officers.^{[6] [1]}
• Sertorius Severus, a man of praetorian rank, was named one of the heirs of Pomponia Galla, together with Pliny the Younger.^[7]
• Sertorius, the husband of Bibula, mentioned by Juvenal.^[8]
• Sertorius Clemens, a medical writer mentioned by Galen.
• Gaius Sertorius Cattianus, equestrian governor of Mauretania Tingitana around AD 200.^[9]

Sertorii Brocchi

• Gaius Sertorius Brocchus, proconsul of an uncertain province during the reign of Claudius.^[10]
• Gaius Sertorius Brocchus Quintus Servaeus Innocens, consul suffectus in AD 101.^[11]
• Gnaeus Sertorius C. f. Brocchus Aquilius Agricola Pedanius Fuscus Salinator Julius Servianus, named in an inscription from Doclea in Dalmatia.^[10]

See also

• List of Roman gentes

Bibliography

• Liber de Praenominibus, a short treatise of uncertain authorship, traditionally appended to Valerius Maximus' Factorum ac Dictorum Memorabilium (Memorable Facts and Sayings).
• Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus (Pliny the Younger), Epistulae (Letters).
• Decimus Junius Juvenalis, Satirae (Satires).
• Plutarchus, Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans.
• Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, William Smith, ed., Little, Brown and Company, Boston (1849).
• Theodor Mommsen et alii, Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum (The Body of Latin Inscriptions, abbreviated CIL), Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften (1853–present).
• George Davis Chase, "The Origin of Roman Praenomina", in Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, vol. VIII, pp. 103–184 (1897).
• Paul von Rohden, Elimar Klebs, & Hermann Dessau, Prosopographia Imperii Romani (The Prosopography of the Roman Empire, abbreviated PIR), Berlin (1898).
• J.E.H. Spaul, "Governors of Tingitana", in Antiquités Africaines, vol. 30 (1994).

Notes and References

1. Dictionary of Greek & Roman Biography & Mythology, vol. III, pp. 789–792 ("Quintus Sertorius").
2. Liber de Praenominibus.
3. Chase, pp. 142, 143.
4. Chase, p. 109.
5. Dictionary of Greek & Roman Biography & Mythology, vol. I, p. 506 ("Brocchus").
6. Plutarch, "The Life of Sertorius", passim.
7. Pliny the Younger, Epistulae, v. 1.
8. Juvenal, Satirae, vi. 142.
9. Spaul, "Governors of Tingitana", p. 248.
10. PIR, vol. III, pp. 223, 224.
11. Fasti Ostienses, .