The gens Oscia was an obscure
plebeian family at
Rome
, established_title = Founded
, established_date = 753 BC
, founder = King Romulus (legendary)
, image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg
, map_caption ...
. Members of this
gens are first mentioned in
imperial times, when a few of them appear among the Roman aristocracy. None of them are known to have held any
magistracies, but an Oscia Modesta was the wife of a
Roman consul
A consul held the highest elected political office of the Roman Republic ( to 27 BC), and ancient Romans considered the consulship the second-highest level of the ''cursus honorum'' (an ascending sequence of public offices to which politic ...
during the time of
Severus Alexander
Marcus Aurelius Severus Alexander (1 October 208 – 21/22 March 235) was a Roman emperor, who reigned from 222 until 235. He was the last emperor from the Severan dynasty. He succeeded his slain cousin Elagabalus in 222. Alexander himself was ...
. A number of Oscii appear in inscriptions.
Origin
The
nomen ''Oscius'' appears to be derived from the cognomen ''Oscus'', referring to one of the
Osci
The Osci (also called Oscans, Opici, Opsci, Obsci, Opicans) were an Italic people of Campania and Latium adiectum before and during Roman times. They spoke the Oscan language, also spoken by the Samnites of Southern Italy. Although the lang ...
, an Italic people closely related to the
Sabines and the
Samnites, who gave their name to the
Oscan language
Oscan is an extinct Indo-European language of southern Italy. The language is in the Osco-Umbrian or Sabellic branch of the Italic languages. Oscan is therefore a close relative of Umbrian.
Oscan was spoken by a number of tribes, including the ...
. This is supported by the fact that some of the Oscii known from inscriptions lived in
Sabinum and neighboring parts of
Latium
Latium ( , ; ) is the region of central western Italy in which the city of Rome was founded and grew to be the capital city of the Roman Empire.
Definition
Latium was originally a small triangle of fertile, volcanic soil ( Old Latium) on w ...
, and by the fact that one of the Oscii bore the
praenomen ''
Statius
Publius Papinius Statius ( Greek: Πόπλιος Παπίνιος Στάτιος; ; ) was a Greco-Roman poet of the 1st century CE. His surviving Latin poetry includes an epic in twelve books, the ''Thebaid''; a collection of occasional poetry, ...
'', a common name among the Oscan-speaking peoples of Italy.
Members
* Oscia St. f., buried at Rome.
[.]
* Marcus Oscius, named in a funerary inscription from Ficulea in Latium.
* Statius Oscius, the father of Oscia.
* Marcus Oscius Dionysius, listed among the soldiers stationed at Rome in AD 70. His commander was the
centurion Gnaeus Pompeius Pelas.
* Oscia P. l. Domestica, a freedwoman mentioned in an inscription from Rome.
[.]
* Publius Oscius P. l. Faustus, a freedman mentioned in an inscription from Rome.
* Gaius Oscius C. l. Felix, a freedman buried at
Trebula Mutusca
Trebula Mutusca (also spelled Trebula Mutuesca or simply Mutuscae) was an ancient city of the Sabines. It is located at Monteleone Sabino, a village about 3 km to the east of the Via Salaria.
Pliny mentions both Sabine cities named Trebula: ' ...
in Sabinum.
* Oscius Gemellus, probably a ''
homo nobilis'' under the early
Empire
An empire is a "political unit" made up of several territories and peoples, "usually created by conquest, and divided between a dominant center and subordinate peripheries". The center of the empire (sometimes referred to as the metropole) ex ...
.
[''PIR'', vol. II, p. 439.]
* Oscia Irene, the wife of Portumius Polytimus, buried at Rome, aged thirty years and twenty days.
* Gaius Oscius C. f. Julianus, a soldier in one of the urban cohorts in AD 197.
* Oscia M. f. Modesta Publiana, the wife of Gaius Arrius Honoratus, consul in an uncertain year during the reign of Severus Alexander. She was the mother of Gaius Arrius Longinus, who probably died in childhood, and the grandmother of Marcus Flavius Arrius Oscius Honoratus, a military tribune.
* Oscia Philete, the wife of Gaius Cominius Felix, buried at Rome.
* Oscia Primigenia, a freedwoman, and the mother of Lucius Apisius Capitolinus, according to a sepulchral inscription from Rome.
* Marcus Oscius M. l. Primigenius, a young freedman buried at Rome, aged fifteen years, eleven months, ten days.
* Oscia Primilla, dedicated a monument at Rome to her son, Marcus Oscius Primus.
[.]
* Marcus Oscius Primus, the son of Oscia Primilla, buried at Rome, aged twenty.
* Oscia Sabina, buried at Rome during the second or third century.
[.]
Footnotes
See also
*
List of Roman gentes
The gens (plural gentes) was a Roman family, of Italic or Etruscan origins, consisting of all those individuals who shared the same '' nomen'' and claimed descent from a common ancestor. It was an important social and legal structure in early ...
References
Bibliography
* René Cagnat ''et alii'', ''
L'Année épigraphique
''L'Année épigraphique'' (''The Epigraphic Year'', standard abbreviation ''AE'') is a French publication on epigraphy (i.e the study of inscriptions or epigraphs as writing). It was set up by René Cagnat, as holder of the chair of 'Epigraphy an ...
'' (The Year in Epigraphy, abbreviated ''AE''), Presses Universitaires de France (1888–present).
*
Theodor Mommsen
Christian Matthias Theodor Mommsen (; 30 November 1817 – 1 November 1903) was a German classical scholar, historian, jurist, journalist, politician and archaeologist. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest classicists of the 19th centu ...
''et alii'', ''
Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum'' (The Body of Latin Inscriptions, abbreviated ''CIL''), Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften (1853–present).
* Wilhelm Henzen, ''Ephemeris Epigraphica: Corporis Inscriptionum Latinarum Supplementum'' (Journal of Inscriptions: Supplement to the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, abbreviated ''EE''), Institute of Roman Archaeology, Rome (1872–1913).
* George Davis Chase, "The Origin of Roman Praenomina", in ''Harvard Studies in Classical Philology'', vol. VIII (1897).
*
Paul von Rohden,
Elimar Klebs, &
Hermann Dessau, ''
Prosopographia Imperii Romani
The ', abbreviated ''PIR'', is a collective historical work to establish the prosopography of high-profile people from the Roman empire. The time period covered extends from the Battle of Actium in 31 BC to the reign of Diocletian. The final vol ...
'' (The Prosopography of the Roman Empire, abbreviated ''PIR''), Berlin (1898).
{{DEFAULTSORT:Oscia (gens)
Roman gentes