Category:Gens Pompeia (Nova Roma)

POMPEIA GENS, plebeian, is not mentioned till the second century before the Christian era: the first member of it who obtained the consulship, Q. Pompeius, in b. c. 141, is described as a man of a humble and obscure origin (Cic. Verr. v. 70, pro Muren. 7, Brut. 25). It is expressly stated that there were two or three distinct families of the Pompeii under the republic (Veil. Pat. ii. 21) ; and we can trace two, one of which was brought into celebrity by Q. Pompeius, the consul of b. c. 141, and the other is still better known as that to which the triumvir belonged. In the for­mer family we find the surname of Rufus ; in the latter, the father of the triumvir was distinguished by the personal cognomen of Strabo, and the tri­umvir himself gained that of Magnus, which he handed down to his children as an hereditary sur­name. Beside these cognomens we have on coins Faustulus as a surname of a Sex. Pompeius, who is otherwise unknown, and Pius as a surname of Sextus, the son of Cn. Pompeius Magnus, to desig­nate him as the avenger of his father and brother. (Eckhel, vol. v. p. 280, &c.)

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