Sosia (gens)

Coin of Gaius Sosius, consul in 32 BC. The implements and initial 'Q' on the reverse presumably allude to his father, the quaestor.

The gens Sosia, occasionally written Sossia, was a plebeian family at ancient Rome. Members of this gens occur in history from the end of the Republic down to the third century AD. The first of the Sosii to attain the consulship was Gaius Sosius in 32 BC, and the family would continue holding various positions in the Roman state until the third century.

Praenomina

The only praenomina associated with the Sosii of the Republic were Titus and Gaius. The Sosii Falcones of imperial times used Quintus and Marcus. All of these were extremely common throughout Roman history.

Branches and cognomina

The Sosii of the Republic bore no cognomina, and were not divided into distinct families. In the second century, however, a family bearing the name of Sosius Falco appears, descended from a daughter of Quintus Sosius Senecio, consul in AD 99 and 107, who married Quintus Pompeius Falco, consul in 109. Senecio, the original surname, was derived from senex, an old man, while Falco, a falcon, was inherited from the Pompeii; it frequently denoted someone whose feet resembled talons; the modern expression is "pigeon-toed".^[1] Priscus, borne by some of the same family, was a common surname meaning "old" or "elder".^[2]

Members

Columns from the Temple of Apollo Sosianus, rebuilt by Gaius Sosius about 34 BC.

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

• Titus Sosius, grandfather of the consul Gaius Sosius, and probably father of the quaestor of 66 BC.^[3]
• Gaius Sosius T. f., quaestor under the consul Manius Aemilius Lepidus in 66 BC, and praetor in 49, joined Caesar on the outbreak of the Civil War, although he had previously been a supporter of Pompeius. He is probably to be distinguished from the partisan of Marcus Antonius, who was consul in 32 BC.^[4][5][6]
• Gaius Sosius C. f. T. n., legate of Marcus Antonius, was probably proconsul of Syria from 37 to about 35 BC; he captured Jerusalem, and celebrated a triumph in 34. Consul in 32, he openly opposed Octavian, and he commanded the left wing of Antonius' fleet at the Battle of Actium, but was later pardoned by Octavian.^{[7][8][9][10][11][12][13][5][14]}
• Sosius, and his brother, were booksellers at Rome, mentioned by Horace. They may have been freedmen of the consul Gaius Sosius, or his father.^[15][16][17]
• Sosia Galla, the wife of Gaius Silius, consul in AD 13, and legate under Germanicus, was a close friend of Agrippina. In AD 24, Sosia and her husband were accused by Sejanus of corruption and plundering the provinces during Silius' command in Germany. Believing his cause hopeless, Silius took his own life, while Sosia was banished from Rome.^[18][19]
• Sosia Maxima, one of the Vestal Virgins.^[20][19]
• Sosius Papus, a friend of Hadrian, was honoured with a statue by the emperor Trajan. He might perhaps be the same person as the consul Quintus Sosius Senecio.^[21][22][23]
• Sosia Juncina, wife of Quintus Antonius Isauricus, consul suffectus in AD 140, dedicated an altar to the goddess Fortuna at Eboracum, where her husband was stationed as legate of the sixth legion in the 130's.^[24][19]

References

Bibliography

• Marcus Tullius Cicero, Epistulae ad Atticum.
• Quintus Horatius Flaccus (Horace), Ars Poëtica (The Art of Poetry), Epistulae.
• Marcus Velleius Paterculus, Compendium of Roman History.
• Flavius Josephus, Antiquitates Judaïcae (Antiquities of the Jews), Bellum Judaïcum (The Jewish War).
• Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus (Pliny the Younger), Epistulae (Letters).
• Publius Cornelius Tacitus, Annales, Historiae.
• Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus (Plutarch), Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans.
• Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, De Vita Caesarum (Lives of the Caesars, or The Twelve Caesars).
• Appianus Alexandrinus (Appian), Bellum Civile (The Civil War).
• Lucius Cassius Dio Cocceianus (Cassius Dio), Roman History.
• Aelius Lampridius, Aelius Spartianus, Flavius Vopiscus, Julius Capitolinus, Trebellius Pollio, and Vulcatius Gallicanus, Historia Augusta (Augustan History).
• 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).
• T. Robert S. Broughton, The Magistrates of the Roman Republic, American Philological Association (1952–1986).
• Géza Alföldy, Konsulat und Senatorenstand unter der Antonien (The Consulate and Senatorial State under the Antonines), Rudolf Habelt, Bonn (1977).
• John C. Traupman, The New College Latin & English Dictionary, Bantam Books, New York (1995).