Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 1.djvu/549

CAECULUS. by his soldiorR, and sent to Antonius to intercede on their behalf. Antonius despatched Caeciniv to Vespasian, who treated him with great honour. "When the news of his treachery readied Rome, he was deprived of his consulship, and Roscius Regii- lus elected in his stead. (Tac. Ilisl. i. 52, 53, (il, 67—70, ii. 20— *25, 30, 41—44, 71, 9^, 100, iii. 1 3, 14, 31 ; Dion Cass. Ixv. 10, 14 ; Joseph. Ii. J. iv. 11. §3.) Nothing more is heard of Caecina till the latter end of the reign of Vespasian (a. d. 79), when he entered into a plot against the emperor, and was slain, by order of Titus, as he rose from a banquet in the imperial palace. (Dion Cass. Ixvi. 16 ; Suet. Tit. ().) According to Aurelius Victor {Epit. 10), Caecina was put to death by Titus because he sus- pected him of intriguing with his mistress Berenice. 10. LiciNius Caecina, a senator attached to Otho's party, a. d. 69 (Tac. Hist. ii. 53), may per- haps be the Licinius Caecina, a man of praetorian rank, mentioned by Pliny. {H. N. xx. 18. s. 76.) CAECI'NA, DE'CIUS ALBl'NUS, a Roman satirist who flourished under Arcadius and Hono- rius. Rutilius Numatianus in his Itinerary (i. 599) addresses a certain Decius, a man of high station, wliom he styles " Lucilli nobile pignus," and whose father he pronounces to be not inferior as a poet to Turnus and Juvenal. But this Decius, the son, is supposed to be the same person with the Decius, son of Albinus, introduced by Macrobius as conversing with Postuniianus {Saturn, i. 2, init.), and Decius the father is identified with Caecina Albinus, represented in the same chapter of the Saturnalia as the friend and companion of Aurelius Symmachus. Moreover, it is maintained that the elder Decius, the satirist, is the individual to whom several of the epistles of Symmachus are addressed (Ep. vii. 35-65, comp. viii. 21), that he was praefectus urbi in a. d. 302 (Cod. Theod. 7. tit. 15. s. 13 ; Gruter, Corp. Inscr. p. cclxxxvii.), and that from the success with which he followed in the foot-stops of Aurunca's bard, he was known as the Lucilius of his day. Hence the expression " Lu- cilli (Lucili) nobile pignus" applied to his son, and hence the mistake of those historians of literature who have included a Lucilius or Lucvllus (corrupt forms of Lucilius) among the satirical writers of the fifth century. Lastly, the persons who hold the above opinions believe that the epigrams in the Greek Anthology beai'ing the name of Lucillius, and assigned by Fabricius to a writer who lived at the end of the fourth century, are in reality the pro- ductions of the subject of this article. (Fabric. Bibl. Ch-acc. vol. ii. p. 719.) The web of conjecture by which all these facts are connected has been very ingeniously woven by WernsdorfF, but in many places the tissue is too frail to bear rough handling. (Wernsdorff, Poet. Jjitin. Min. vol. iii. p. xxii., vol. v. p. 1 82.) [W. R.] C. CAE'CIUS, a friend of Lentulus Spinther, the younger, spoken of by Cicero in b. c. 49. (Cic. adAtt.x. 11, 13.) CAE'CULUS, an ancient Italian hero of Prae- neste. The account which Servius {ad Aen. vii. <i78) gives of him runs as follows : At Praeneste there were pontifices and dii indigetes as well as at Rome. There were however two brothers called indigetes (the common reading is dii instead of in- di</etes, but is evidently wrong) who had a sister. On one occasion, while she was sitting by the fire of the hearth, a spark fell into her lap, whereby CAEDTCIUS. 531 she became the mother of a son, whom she exposed near the temple of Jupiter. Here the infant was found, lying by the side of a fire, by maidens who happened to come to fetch water. The fire near which he had been found led to his being consi- dered a son of Vulcan. This child was Caeculus, who, after growing up to manhood, and living for a time as a robber, together with a number of com- rades who were shepherds, built the town of Prae- neste. He invited the neighbourhood to the cele- bration of public games at Praeneste, and when they were assembled, he called upon them to settle in the newly built town, and he gave weight to his demand by declaring that he was a son of Vulcan. But when the people disbelieved his assertions, he prayed Vulcan to send a sign, whereupon the whole assembly was surrounded by a bright flame. This miracle induced the people to recognize him as the son of Vulcan, and to settle at Praeneste. The substance of this story is also given by Soiinus (ii. 9). The two brothers {indigetes) mentioned in this story are, according to Hartung, the well-known twins who were worshipped at Rome as Lares and Penates, and their sister a priestess of the hearth. Caeculus, too, is, like Vulcan, a divinity of the hearth, because he is the son of Vulcan, was con- ceived by a priestess of the hearth, and was found near a hearth (fire). For the same reason, Har- timg connects the name Caeculus with koioj and caleo. The manner in which Caeculus obtains settlers for his new town resembles the means by which Romulus contrived to get women for his Romans ; but a still greater similarity exists be- tween the stories of the conception of Caeculus and of king Servius TuUius. This resemblance, toge- ther with the connexion of Servius TuUius with Caia Caecilia, seem to indicate that Servius TuUius was the representative of the same idea at Rome as Caeculus was at Praeneste. (Hartung, Di^ Reliy. d. Rum. i. p. 88, &c. ; Klausen, Aeneas u. d. PenaU p. 761, &c.) [L. S.] CAECUS, a surname of Ap. Claudius, censor B. c. 312 and consul in 307 and 296. His life is related under Claudius, as he is better known under the latter name. CAEDI'CIA GENS, plebeian. A person of this name was a tribune of the plebs as early as B. c. 475, but the first of the gens who obtained the consulship was Q. Caedicius Noctua, in B. c. 289. The only cognomen occurring in this gens is Noctua : for those who have no surname, see Caedicius. The name does not occur at all in the later times of the republic ; but a Caedicius is mentioned twice by Juvenal (xiii, 197, xvi. 46). CAEDI'CIUS. 1. L. Caedicius, tribune of the plebs, b. c. 475, brought to trial Sp. Servilius Priscus Structus, the consul of the preceding year. (Liv. ii. 52 ; Dionys. ix. 28.) 2. M. Caedicius, is said to have told the tri- bunes of the plebs, in b. c. 391, that he had heard, in the silence of the night, a superhuman voice, commanding him to inform the magistrates that the Gauls were coming. (Liv. v. 32 ; Plut. CamUL 14 ; Zonaras, vii. 23.) This appears to be the same Caedicius, a centurion, who was elected as their commander by the Romans that had fled to Veii after the destruction of the city by the Gauls, B. c. 390. He led out his countrymen against the Etruscans, who availed themselves of the misfor- tunes of the Romans to plunder the Veientine ter- ritory. After this he proposed that Camillus should 2 m 2