Sornatia gens

The gens Sornatia was an obscure plebeian family at ancient Rome. Few members of this gens appear in history, of whom the most famous was a general of Lucullus during the Third Mithridatic War, but several others are known from inscriptions.

Origin[]

The nomen Sornatius resembles other gentilicia formed using the suffix -atius, usually from cognomina ending in -as or -atis, derived from place names, or participles ending in -atus.^[1] However, there are no known corresponding surnames; there was, however, a town called Sornum in Dacia.^[2] There was also a rare gentile name Sornius,^[i] from which the nomen might have been derived.^[3]

Members[]

This list includes abbreviated praenomina. For an explanation of this practice, see filiation.

• Sornatius, a physician quoted by Pliny the Elder. Sornatius is given as an authority for the proposition that those using a certain hair dye produced by rotting leeches in a leaden vessel full of vinegar should put oil in their mouths to prevent their teeth from blackening along with their hair.^[4][5]
• Gaius Sornatius C. f., a legate of the proconsul Lucius Licinius Lucullus during the Third Mithridatic War. In 72 BC, he inflicted a devastating defeat on the Pontic army, and nearly captured Mithridates. When Lucullus invaded Armenia in 69, he left Sornatius in charge of Pontus, with a force of six thousand soldiers. The following year, his soldiers mutinied, and refused to leave for Armenia, until shamed into doing so by a Roman defeat.^[6][7][8]
• Gaius Sornatius C. f., named in an inscription from Castrum Novum in Picenum.^[9]
• Gaius Sornatius C. f., a centurion primus pilus in the Legio X Fretensis, buried at Rome, with a monument from Sornatia Phiale.^[10]
• Sornatia Arecusa, together with her son, Gaius Sornatius Indus, dedicated a tomb at Rome for her husband of forty-three years, Quintus Lucretius Zeuxis, aged sixty.^[11]
• Gaius Sornatius Q. f. Q. n. Indus, together with his mother, Sornatia Arecusa, dedicated a tomb at Rome for his father, Quintus Lucretius Zeuxis.^[11]
• Sornatia Phiale, dedicated a monument at Rome to Gaius Sornatius, the centurion.^[10]
• Gaius Sornatius Plutus, together with Gaius Norbanus Amianthus, masters of a slave named Cedrus, named in an inscription from Rome.^[12]
• Gaius Sornatius Quartio, buried at Rome, with a monument from his sister, Sornatia.^[13]
• Titus Sornatius C. f. Sabinus, buried at Rome during the first century, in a sepulchre built by his mother, Anusia Tertia for herself and her son.^[14]

See also[]

• List of Roman gentes

Notes[]

References[]

Bibliography[]

• Gaius Plinius Secundus (Pliny the Elder), Historia Naturalis (Natural History).
• Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus (Plutarch), Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans.
• Theodor Mommsen et alii, Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum (The Body of Latin Inscriptions, abbreviated CIL), Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften (1853–present).
• Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography, William Smith, ed., Little, Brown and Company, Boston (1854).
• August Pauly, Georg Wissowa, et alii, Realencyclopädie der Classischen Altertumswissenschaft (Scientific Encyclopedia of the Knowledge of Classical Antiquities, abbreviated RE or PW), J. B. Metzler, Stuttgart (1894–1980).
• 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).
• T. Robert S. Broughton, The Magistrates of the Roman Republic, American Philological Association (1952–1986).