Ummidia (gens)

The gens Ummidia was a Roman family which flourished during the 1st and 2nd centuries. The first member of the gens to achieve prominence was Gaius Ummidius Durmius Quadratus, governor of Syria during the reigns of Claudius and Nero. The Ummidii held several consulships in the 2nd century, and through the marriage of Gaius Ummidius Quadratus Annianus Verus were related to the emperor Marcus Aurelius.^[1][2]

Origin

The Ummidii were a minor family, apparently not of any great antiquity, and was not familiar to contemporary writers. The nomen Ummidius is given in various forms by different authors. Josephus writes it as Numidius, while in different editions of Tacitus, Plinius, and the authors of the Historia Augusta, it is written as Numidius, Vindius, and Ummidius. The latter occurs in some of the best manuscripts, and in inscriptions. The name is mentioned by the poet Horatius, where again different manuscripts give it variously, but it appears that the original reading was Ummidius.^[1][3]

The family probably came from the town of Casinum, in Campania, where an inscription mentions Ummidia Quadratilla, who funded the building of an amphitheater and a temple for the townspeople. In this case, the Ummidii may have been of Volscian origin, although the antiquarian Varro believed the inhabitants of Casinum to be Samnite.^[4][5]

Praenomina

The only praenomina associated with the Ummidii are Gaius and Marcus; in some manuscripts of Tacitus, Titus is given in place of Gaius, but this appears to be a mistake.^[1][6]

Branches and cognomina

The only family-name of the Ummidii was Quadratus, meaning "quartered". All of the Ummidii known to history bore this surname.^[1][7]

Members

This list includes abbreviated praenomina. For an explanation of this practice, see filiation.

• Gaius Ummidius Quadratus, father of Gaius Ummidius Durmius Quadratus and Ummidia Quadratilla.^[4]
• Gaius Ummidius C. f. Durmius Quadratus, governor of Syria from the reign of Claudius, circa AD 51, to his death in 60. He acquiesced to the deposition of Mithridates, the king of Armenia, by Rhadamistus, who put the king to death in AD 52.^{[8][9][10][11]}
• Ummidia C. f. Quadratilla, probably the sister of Gaius Ummidius Durmius Quadratus, she was a woman of great wealth, who died during the reign of Trajan, bequeathing her estate, including the house formerly inhabited by the jurist Gaius Cassius Longinus, to her grandchildren.^[4][12]
• Ummidius Quadratus, a friend and admirer of Pliny the Younger. He was the grandson of Ummidia Quadratilla, and was consul suffectus with the emperor Hadrian, by whom he was later persecuted, in AD 118.^[13][14]
• Gaius Ummidius Quadratus, married Annia Cornificia Faustina, sister of the emperor Marcus Aurelius. He held the consulship, but the year is uncertain.^[2][15]
• Marcus Ummidius C. f. Quadratus, nephew of Marcus Aurelius, he was consul in AD 167 with the emperor Lucius Aurelius Verus.^[16]
• Ummidia C. f. Cornificia Faustina, niece of Marcus Aurelius.^[16]
• Ummidius M. f. C. n. Quadratus, induced by his cousin, Lucilla, to conspire against her brother, the emperor Commodus; the conspiracy failed, and Quadratus was put to death, in AD 183.^[17][18][19]

See also

• List of Roman gentes

Footnotes

1. Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, William Smith, Editor.
2. Anthony Birley, Marcus Aurelius (1966).
3. Quintus Horatius Flaccus, Satirae, i. 1. 95.
4. Johann Caspar von Orelli, Inscriptionum Latinarum Selectarum Collectio no. 781.
5. Encyclopædia Britannica, eleventh edition (1911), s. v. Casinum.
6. Realencyclopädie der Classischen Altertumswissenschaft.
7. D.P. Simpson, Cassell's Latin & English Dictionary (1963).
8. Flavius Josephus, Antiquitates Judaicae, xx. 5. § 2, The Jewish War, ii. 12. §§ 5, 6.
9. Publius Cornelius Tacitus, Annales, xii. 45 ff., 54, xiii. 8, 9, xiv. 26.
10. Joseph Hilarius Eckhel, Doctrina Numorum Veterum, vol. iii. p. 280.
11. Johann Caspar von Orelli, Inscriptionum Latinarum Selectarum Collectio no. 3665.
12. Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus, Epistulae, vii. 24.
13. Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus, Epistulae, vi. 11, 29, vii. 24, ix. 13.
14. Aelius Spartianus, Hadrian, 15.
15. Julius Capitolinus, Marcus Aurelius, 7.
16. Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 1, 8-11.
17. Aelius Lampridius, Commodus, 4.
18. Herodianus, History of the Roman Empire, i. 8.
19. Lucius Cassius Dio Cocceianus, Roman History, lxxii. 4.

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Smith, William, ed. (1870). "^{article name needed}". Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology.