Titus Verginius Tricostus Caeliomontanus was

consul Consul (abbrev. ''cos.''; Latin plural ''consules'') was the title of one of the two chief magistrates of the Roman Republic, and subsequently also an important title under the Roman Empire. The title was used in other European city-states throug ...

of the

Roman Republic The Roman Republic ( la, Res publica Romana ) was a form of government of Rome and the era of the classical Roman civilization when it was run through public representation of the Roman people. Beginning with the overthrow of the Roman Kin ...

in 448 BC with

Lars Herminius Aquilinus __NoToC__ Lars Herminius Aquilinus was consul in 448 BC with Titus Verginius Tricostus Caeliomontanus (consul 448). Their year of office was relatively peaceful, as neither consul took sides in the conflict between the patricians and the plebeians ...

. Little is known about his life.

Family background

Caeliomontanus belonged to the

patrician Patrician may refer to: * Patrician (ancient Rome), the original aristocratic families of ancient Rome, and a synonym for "aristocratic" in modern English usage * Patrician (post-Roman Europe), the governing elites of cities in parts of medieval ...

gens In ancient Rome, a gens ( or , ; plural: ''gentes'' ) was a family consisting of individuals who shared the same Roman naming conventions#Nomen, nomen and who claimed descent from a common ancestor. A branch of a gens was called a ''stirps'' (p ...

Verginia Verginia, or Virginia (c. 465 BC449 BC), was the subject of a story of ancient Rome, related in Livy's ''Ab Urbe Condita''.Smith, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology > v. 3, page 1267 /ref> The story of Verginia In 451 BC ...

, which was of

Etruscan __NOTOC__ Etruscan may refer to: Ancient civilization *The Etruscan language, an extinct language in ancient Italy *Something derived from or related to the Etruscan civilization **Etruscan architecture **Etruscan art **Etruscan cities ** Etrusca ...

origin, arriving to Rome with the

Tarquins The gens Tarquinia was a plebeian family at ancient Rome, usually associated with Lucius Tarquinius Priscus and Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, the fifth and seventh Kings of Rome. Most of the Tarquinii who appear in history are connected in some way ...

. They originally only bore the cognomen Tricostus. The first member of the family to reach the consulship was Opiter Verginius Tricostus in

502 __NOTOC__ Year 502 ( DII) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Avienus and Probus (or, less frequently, year 1255 ' ...

, in the early years of the Roman Republic. The patrician Verginii soon separated in two branches, one living on the

Esquiline Hill The Esquiline Hill (; la, Collis Esquilinus; it, Esquilino ) is one of the Seven Hills of Rome. Its southernmost cusp is the ''Oppius'' ( Oppian Hill). Etymology The origin of the name ''Esquiline'' is still under much debate. One view is ...

, the other on the

Caelian Hill The Caelian Hill (; la, Collis Caelius; it, Celio ) is one of the famous seven hills of Rome. Geography The Caelian Hill is a sort of long promontory about long, to wide, and tall in the park near the Temple of Claudius. The hill over ...

, thus taking the additional cognomen Esquilinus and Caeliomontanus. The

Fasti Capitolini The ''Fasti Capitolini'', or Capitoline Fasti, are a list of the chief magistrates of the Roman Republic, extending from the early fifth century BC down to the reign of Augustus, the first Roman emperor. Together with similar lists found at Rom ...

are missing between 449 and 423, so Caeliomontanus' filiation has not been preserved.

Friedrich Münzer Friedrich Münzer (22 April 1868 – 20 October 1942) was a German classical scholar noted for the development of prosopography, particularly for his demonstrations of how family relationships in ancient Rome connected to political struggles. He d ...

and

Hans Georg Gundel Hans may refer to: __NOTOC__ People * Hans (name), a masculine given name * Hans Raj Hans, Indian singer and politician ** Navraj Hans, Indian singer, actor, entrepreneur, cricket player and performer, son of Hans Raj Hans ** Yuvraj Hans, Punjabi a ...

thought he was the son of

Spurius Verginius Tricostus Caeliomontanus Spurius Verginius Tricostus Caeliomontanus was a Roman consul and a Roman politician of the 5th century BC. There was no recorded date of his birth and death though there was a record his term of office from 456 BC to 455 BC. During his time in o ...

, consul in 456, but it is improbable that he was consul just 8 years before his son.

Robert Maxwell Ogilvie Robert Maxwell Ogilvie FRSE FSA FBA DLitt (5 June 1932 – 7 November 1981) was a British scholar of Latin literature and Classical language, classical philology. Life His parents were Sir Frederick Wolff Ogilvie (1893–1949), director-general ...

suggested instead

Aulus Verginius Aulus (abbreviated A.) is one of the small group of common forenames found in the culture of ancient Rome. The name was traditionally connected with Latin ''aula'', ''olla'', "palace", but this is most likely a false etymology. ''Aulus'' in fact p ...

, consul in 469, as his father, with a more credible 21 years gap between them.

Career

Caeliomontanus' career is completely unknown apart from his consulship. He was elected consul ''posterior'' in 448, with

as consul ''prior'', which means the

Centuriate Assembly The Centuriate Assembly (Latin: ''comitia centuriata'') of the Roman Republic was one of the three voting assemblies in the Roman constitution. It was named the Centuriate Assembly as it originally divided Roman citizens into groups of one hundred ...

elected Aquilinus before Caeliomontanus.Dionysius of Halicarnassus, xi. 51. Their year of office was relatively peaceful, as neither consul took sides during the

Conflict of the Orders The Conflict of the Orders, sometimes referred to as the Struggle of the Orders, was a political struggle between the plebeians (commoners) and patricians (aristocrats) of the ancient Roman Republic lasting from 500 BC to 287 BC in which the plebe ...

, the social struggle that opposed

patricians The patricians (from la, patricius, Greek: πατρίκιος) were originally a group of ruling class families in ancient Rome. The distinction was highly significant in the Roman Kingdom, and the early Republic, but its relevance waned after ...

and

plebeians In ancient Rome, the plebeians (also called plebs) were the general body of free Roman citizens who were not patricians, as determined by the census, or in other words " commoners". Both classes were hereditary. Etymology The precise origins of ...

during the first two centuries of the Republic.

Livy Titus Livius (; 59 BC – AD 17), known in English as Livy ( ), was a Ancient Rome, Roman historian. He wrote a monumental history of Rome and the Roman people, titled , covering the period from the earliest legends of Rome before the traditiona ...

adds that they did not wage any military campaign.Livy, iii. 65.

References

Bibliography

Ancient sources

Dionysius of Halicarnassus Dionysius of Halicarnassus ( grc, Διονύσιος Ἀλεξάνδρου Ἁλικαρνασσεύς, ; – after 7 BC) was a Greek historian and teacher of rhetoric, who flourished during the reign of Emperor Augustus. His literary sty ...

, ''Romaike Archaiologia''
English translation
on

LacusCurtius LacusCurtius is a website specializing in ancient Rome, currently hosted on a server at the University of Chicago. It went online on August 26, 1997; in July 2021 it had "3707 webpages, 765 photos, 772 drawings & engravings, 120 plans, 139 maps." T ...

). *

, ''

Ab Urbe Condita ''Ab urbe condita'' ( 'from the founding of the City'), or ''anno urbis conditae'' (; 'in the year since the city's founding'), abbreviated as AUC or AVC, expresses a date in years since 753 BC, the traditional founding of Rome. It is an exp ...

'' ( English translation by Rev. Canon Roberts on

Wikisource Wikisource is an online digital library of free-content textual sources on a wiki, operated by the Wikimedia Foundation. Wikisource is the name of the project as a whole and the name for each instance of that project (each instance usually rep ...

Modern sources

* T. Robert S. Broughton, ''The Magistrates of the Roman Republic'', American Philological Association, 1951–1952. *

Attilio Degrassi Attilio Degrassi (Trieste, 21 June 1887 – Rome, 1 June 1969) was an archeologist and pioneering Italian scholar of Latin epigraphy. Degrassi taught at the University of Padova where he trained, among others, the epigraphist Silvio Panciera, c ...

, ''Fasti Capitolini recensuit, praefatus est, indicibus instruxit Atilius Degrassi'', Turin, 1954. *

, ''Commentary on Livy, books 1–5'', Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1965. * August Pauly,

Georg Wissowa Georg Otto August Wissowa (17 June 1859 – 11 May 1931) was a German classical philologist born in Neudorf, near Breslau. Education and career Wissowa studied classical philology under August Reifferscheid at the University of Breslau ...

, ''et alii'', '' Realencyclopädie der Classischen Altertumswissenschaft'' (abbreviated ''PW''), J. B. Metzler, Stuttgart, 1894–1980. *

Lily Ross Taylor Lily Ross Taylor (born August 12, 1886, in Auburn, Alabama - died November 18, 1969, in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania) was an American academic and author, who in 1917 became the first female Fellow of the American Academy in Rome. Biography Born in ...

and T. Robert S. Broughton,
The Order of the Two Consuls' Names in the Yearly Lists
, ''

Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome A memoir (; , ) is any nonfiction narrative writing based in the author's personal memories. The assertions made in the work are thus understood to be factual. While memoir has historically been defined as a subcategory of biography or autobiog ...

'', 19 (1949), pp. 3–14. {{DEFAULTSORT:Verginius Tricostus Caeliomontanus, Titus 5th-century BC Roman consuls