Category:Gens Herennia (Nova Roma)

This page is maintained under authority of the Censores. Make no unauthorized changes .

HERENNIA GENS, originally Samnite (Liv. ix. 3 ; Appian, Samnit. 4. § 3), and by the Sam­nite invasion established in Campania (Liv. iv, 37, vii. 38, xxxix. 13), became at a later period a plebeian house at Rome. (Cic. End. 45, ad Att. i. 18, 19; Sail. Hist. ii. ap. Gell. x. 20; Liv. xxiii. 43.) The Herennii were a family of rank in Italy. They were the hereditary patrons of the Marii. (Plut. Mar. 5.) Herennius was a leading senator of Nola in Campania (Liv. xxiii. 43) ; and M. Herennius was decurio of Pompeii about b. c. 63. (Plin. H. JV. ii. 51.) From a coin (see be­low), from the cognomen Siculus (Val. Max. ix. 12. § 6), and the settlement of an Herennius at Leptis as a merchant (Cic. in Verr. i. 5, v. 59), one branch at least of the family seems to have been engaged in commerce (Macrob. Sat. iii. 6 ; Serv. ad A en. viii. 363), especially in the Sicilian and African trade, and in the purchase and ex­portation of the silphium —ferula Tingitana — (Sprengel, Rei Herbar. p. 84), from Gyrene. (Plin. H. N. xix. 3.) The Herennii appear for the first time in the Fasti, b. c. 93. tinder the empire they held various provincial and military offices (Joseph. Antiq. xviii. 16; Tac. Hist. iv. 19 ; Dion Cass. Ixvii. 13; Plin. Ep. vii. 33); and the wife of the Emperor Decius (a. d. 249) was Herennia Etruscilla. [etruscilla ; etruscus.] The cog­nomens which occur under the republic are bal-bus, bassus, cerrinius, pontius, and siculus. As the surnames of Balbus, Bassus, and Cerrinius, have been omitted under these names, they are placed under the gentile name.

In the Herennian, as in other families of Sabellian origin, a peculiarity in the system of names is to be noted. To the family or paternal name was added that of the mother or wife. Thus the son of Cerrinius and Minia Paculla (Liv. xxxix. 13) is Minius Cerrinius, who, by marriage with an He­rennia, becomes Herennius Cerrinius. The son of the emperor Decius and Herennia Etruscilla was styled Herennius Etruscus Messius Decius. There was both assumption and deposition of names in this system. Thus Minius Cerrinius dropped the former of his appellations when he took that of Herennius. (Comp. Gdttling, Staatsverfassung der Rom. p. 5, &c.) [W. B. D.]

Source Smith