Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 1.djvu/600

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CALPURNIA
CALPURNIUS.

their vassalship. During his stay in that town, the emperor was exposed to great danger by a sudden uproar of the people, who fancied that the town was about to be given over to the Greeks. The emperor saved himself by a sudden flight, and was going to storm Antioch, when prince Raymond came to his camp, made an apology for the reckless conduct of his subjects, and soothed the emperor's anger by a new protestation of his faith. Calo- Joannes and Raymond now joined their troops, and made a successful campaign against the Turks-Atabeks in Syria, whose emir Emad-ed-din had conquered Haleb. Calo-Joannes returned to Constantinople in 1141, defeating on his march the sultan of Iconium, from whom he took the fortified islands in the lake near Iconium, and exterminated the pirates and robbers who had infested the coasts from Cilicia to Lydia. Encouraged by so many victories, and supported by eminent generals and well-disciplined troops, who were in every respect equid to those of the Latin princes of the East, Calo-Joannes conceived the plan of conquering the Latin kingdoms and principalities of Jerusalem, Antioch, &c., and of driving out the Atabecks from Syria, all of which were provinces that had once belonged to the Eastern empire. In 1142 he set out for Cilicia at the head of a strong army, pretending that he was going to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. In the spring of 1143, he was at Anazarba. While hunting one day in the forests on the banks of the Pyramus, he attacked a wild boar : he succeeded in piercing the beast with his spear, but in the struggle his quiver was upset, and he received a slight wound in his hand from one of the arrows. The weapon was poisoned, and as the emperor would not allow his hand to be amputated, he died from the effects of the wound, on the 8th of April, 1143. His successor was his fourth son, Manuel, whom the emperor appointed in preference to his third son, Isaac; his eldest sons, Alexis and Andronicus, had both died a short time before their father. The wife of Calo-Joannes was Irene the daughter of Wladislaw I. the Saint, king of Hungary, the sister of king Caloman, and the aunt of king Stephen I., with whom Calo-Joannes made war: he married her before 1105, and she died in 1124. (Nicetas,, Joannes Comnenus; Cinnamus, i. ii. 1-5.) [W. P.]

CALPETA'NUS, a physician at Rome, who lived probably about the beginning or middle of the first century after Christ, and who is mentioned by Pliny (H.N. xxix. 5) as having gained by his practice the annual income of two hundred and fifty thousand sesterces (about 1953l. 2s. 6d.). This is considered by Pliny to be a very large sum, and may therefore give us some notion of the fortunes made by physicians at Rome about the beginning of the empire. [W. A. G.]


CALPU'RNIA. 1. The daughter of L. Calpurnius Bestia, consul in B.C. 58, the wife of P. Antistius and the mother of Antistia, the first wife of Pompeius Magnus. On the murder of her husband in B. c. 82, by order of the younger Marius, Calpurnia put an end to her own life. (Vell. Pat, ii. 26 ; comp. Antistius, No 6.)

2. The daughter of L. Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus, consul in B.C. 58, and the last wife of the dictator Caesar, whom he married in B.C. 59. (Suet. Caes. 21 ; Plut. Caes. 14, Pomp. 47, Cat. Min. 33; Appian, B.C. ii. 14; Caes. B.G. i. 12.) Calpurnia seems not to have intemeddled in political affairs, and to have borne quietly the favours which her husband bestowed upon Cleopatra, when she came to Rome in B.C. 46. The reports that had got abroad respecting the conspiracy against Caesar's life filled Calpurnia with the liveliest apprehensions ; she was haunted by dreams in the night, and entreated her husband, but in vain, not to leave home on the fatal Ides of March, B.C. 44. (Appian, B.C. ii.115 ; Dion Cass. xliv. 17; Vell. Pat. ii. 57; Suet. Caes. 81 ; Plut. Caes. 63.)

CALPU'RNIA. 1. One of the favourite concubines of the emperor Claudius. She was prevailed upon by Narcissus to go to Ostia, where the emperor was tarrying, to infom him of the marriage of Messalina and C. Silius. (Tac. Ann. xi. 30.)

2. A woman of high rank, who was sent into exile by the jealousy of Agrippina, the wife of the emperor Claudius, who had accidentally spoken of her figure in terms of praise. She was recalled by Nero, in A.D. 60, for the purpose of making an exhibition of his clemency, after having just before caused his own mother to be murdered. (Tac. Ann. xii. 22, xiv. 72.) [L. S.]


CALPU'RNIA GENS, plebeian, pretended to be descended from Calpus, the third of the four sons of Numa ; and accordingly we find the head of Numa on some of the coins of this gens. (Plut. Num. 21 ; Hor. Ars Poet. 292 ; Festus, s. v. Calpurni; Eckhel, v. p.160.) The Calpurnii are not mentioned till the time of the first Punic war, and the first of them who obtained the consulship was C. Calpurnius Piso in B.C. 1 80 ; but from this time their consulships are very frequent, and the family of the Pisones becomes one of the most illustrious in the Roman state. The family-names under the republic are Bestia, Bibulus, Flamma, and Piso, and some of the Pisones are distinguished by the surnames of Caesoninus and Fragi.


CALPURNIA'NUS, DE'CIUS, praefect of the body-guard of the emperor Claudius, seems to have been compromised in the adulterous conduct of ^Messalina, and was put to death in consequence, A.D. 48. (Tac. Ann. xi. 35.) [L. S.]


CALPURNIA'NUS, M. PU'PIUS PISO, consul in B.C. 61. [Piso.]


CALPU'RNIUS, standard-bearer of the first legion in Germany at the accession of Tiberius, A.D. 14. When Munatius Plancus arrived in the camp of Germanicus in Germany, as the ambassador of the senate, the rebellious soldiers would have murdered him while he was embracing as a suppliant the sacred standards, had not Calpurnius checked the violence of the soldiers. (Tac. Ann.i.39.) [L. S.]


CALPU'RNIUS, surnamed SICULUS. Among the works of the Latin poets we find eleven pastorals which usually bear the title T. Calpurnii Siculi Bucolicon Eclogae to which is sometimes added Ad Nemesianum Carthaginiensem. The author is generally believed to have lived towards the end of the third century, and the person to whom the work is addressed is supposed to be the Aurelius Olympius Nemesianus whose poem on hunting is still extant. It will be found, however, upon a careful investigation of authorities, that we not only know nothing whatsoever with regard to the personal history of Calpurnius, but that every circumstance connected with his name, his age, his works, and his friends, is involved in obscurity and doubt. In several MSS. he is designated as