Spurius Nautius Rutilus

The gens Nautia was an old patrician family at ancient Rome. The first of the gens to obtain the consulship was Spurius Nautius Rutilus in 488 BC, and from then until the Samnite Wars the Nautii regularly filled the highest offices of the Roman Republic. After that time, the Nautii all but disappear from the record, appearing only in a handful of inscriptions, mostly from Rome and Latium.''Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology'', vol. II, p. 1145 (" Nautia Gens"). A few Nautii occur in imperial times, including a number who appear to have been freedmen, and in the provinces.

Origin

Little is known about the origin of the nomen ''Nautius'', or whether it has any connection with ''nauta'', a sailor. The Nautii themselves claimed to be descended from Nautes or Nautius, a companion of Aeneas, who brought the Palladium, a sacred statue of Athena from Troy. His descendants, the Nautii, were said to have protected and maintained the Palladium into Roman times.

Praenomina

All of the Nautii known from the early Republic bore the praenomina ''Spurius (praenomen), Spurius'' or ''Gaius (praenomen), Gaius''. The later Nautii used ''Marcus (praenomen), Marcus'', ''Gaius'', ''Publius (praenomen), Publius'', ''Lucius (praenomen), Lucius'', and ''Quintus (praenomen), Quintus'', all of which were very common names throughout Roman history.

Branches and cognomina

All of the Nautii mentioned in history bore the surname ''Rutilus'', which means "reddish", and probably signified that one of the early Nautii had red hair.

Members

Early Nautii

* Spurius Nautius Rutilus (consul 488 BC), Spurius Nautius Sp. f. (Sp. n.) Rutilus, a distinguished young patrician at the time of the First secessio plebis, first secession of the plebs, in 493 BC. During his consulship in 488, Gaius Marcius Coriolanus, Coriolanus marched against Rome at the head of a Volscian army. Nautius and his colleague saw to the city's defenses while various envoys attempted to negotiate with Coriolanus.
* Gaius Nautius Rutilus, Gaius Nautius Sp. f. Sp. n. Rutilus, consul in 475 BC, had the conduct of the war against the Volsci. Unable to force a confrontation, he ravaged their territory. During his second consulship in 458, he fought successfully against the Sabines, but when his colleague was defeated by the Aequi, he was asked to nominate Roman dictator, and chose Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus, Cincinnatus.
* Spurius Nautius Rutilus (consular tribune 424 BC), Spurius Nautius Sp. f. Rutilus, tribuni militum consulari potestate, consular tribune in 424 BC.
* Spurius Nautius Rutilus (consul 411 BC), Spurius Nautius Sp. f. Sp. n. Rutilus, consular tribune in 419, 416, and 404 BC.''Fasti Capitolini''.
* Gaius Nautius Sp. f. Sp. n. Rutilus, consul in 411 BC.
* Spurius Nautius Sp. f. Sp. n. Rutilus, consul in 316 BC.
* Spurius Nautius Rutilus, an officer serving under the consul Lucius Papirius Cursor in 293, was rewarded for his bravery against the Samnites at Aquilonia.
* Gaius Nautius Rutilus, consul in 287 BC.
* Nautius (Rutilus), a military tribune in 256 BC, during the First Punic War, opposed the plan of the consul Marcus Atilius Regulus the war to Africa, but Regulus threatened him with death if he did not obey his orders.

Later Nautii

* Gaius Nautius Q. f., a senator in 129 BC.
* Marcus Nautius, quaestor during the late Republic or the early decades of the Roman Empire, Empire, according to an inscription at Gabii.
* Gaius Nautius Amphio, one of the curators of a monument erected at Rome in AD 9.
* Gaius Nautius Nicanor, mentioned in an inscription from Rome.
* Gaius Nautius Philoxenus, mentioned in an inscription from Rome.
* Publius Nautius Auctus, mentioned in an inscription from Rome.
* Gaius Nautius Syntropus, mentioned in an inscription from Cumae concerning those serving under the quindecimviri sacris faciundis, guardians of the Sibylline Books, which were said to have come from Cumae during the reign of Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, Tarquin the Proud.
* Gaius Nautius C. l. Trupho, a freedman named in an inscription from Terracina, Tarracina.
* Publius Nautius Apollinaris, erected a monument at Rome to Lucius Lusius Petellinus.
* Marcus Nautius, named in an inscription from Marsala, Lilybaeum..
* Lucius Nautius, named in an inscription from Lilybaeum.
* Quintus Nautius Secundus, a soldier from Roman Carthage, Carthage in the Legio II Traiana Fortis, second legion at Nicopolis in Epirus (Roman province), Epirus Vetus, according to an inscription dating to the middle of the second century..

Footnotes

See also

* List of Roman gentes

References

{{reflist, 30em

Bibliography

* Virgil, Publius Vergilius Maro, ''Aeneid''.
* Titus Livius (Livy), ''Ab Urbe Condita Libri, Ab Urbe Condita'' (History of Rome).
* Dionysius of Halicarnassus, ''Romaike Archaiologia''.
* Florus, Lucius Annaeus Florus, ''Epitome de T. Livio Bellorum Omnium Annorum DCC'' (Epitome of Livy: All the Wars of Seven Hundred Years).
* Lucius Cassius Dio Cocceianus (Cassius Dio), ''Roman History''.
* Maurus Servius Honoratus, ''Ad Virgilii Aeneidem Commentarii'' (Commentary on Vergil's Aeneid).
* ''Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology'', William Smith (lexicographer), 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).
* René Cagnat ''et alii'', ''L'Année épigraphique'' (The Year in Epigraphy, abbreviated ''AE''), Presses Universitaires de France (1888–present).
* George Davis Chase, "The Origin of Roman Praenomina", in ''Harvard Studies in Classical Philology'', vol. VIII (1897).
* Thomas Robert Shannon Broughton, T. Robert S. Broughton, ''The Magistrates of the Roman Republic'', American Philological Association (1952).
* Robert K. Sherk,
The Text of the ''Senatus Consultum De Agro Pergameno''
, in ''Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies'', vol. 7, pp. 361–369 (1966).

Nautii,
Roman gentes