Fannia

1. A woman of Minturnae, of bad repute. C. Titinius married her, nevertheless, because she had considerable property. Soon after he repudiated her for her bad conduct, and at the same time attempted to rob her of her dowry. C. Marius, who was to decide between them, requested Titinius to restore the dowry; but when this was refused, C. Marius pronounced sentence, declaring the woman guilty of adultery, but compelling her husband to restore her dowry, because he had married the woman although he knew what she was. The woman gratefully remembered the service thus done to her, and, when Marius, in B. C. 88, on his escape from the marshes, came to Minturnae, Fannia received him into her house, and took care of him as well as she could. (V. Max. 8.2.3; Plut. Mar. 38, who erroneously calls her husband Tinnius.)

2. The second wife of Helvidius Priscus. In the reign of Nero, when her husband was exiled, she accompanied him to Macedonia. In the reign of Vespasian she accompanied him a second time into exile. After the death of her husband she persuaded Herennius Senecio to write the life of Helvidius Priscus. The biographer was put to death by Domitian, and Fannia was punished for her suggestion by being sent into exile. (Plin. Elpist. 1.5, 7.19; Suet. Vesp. 15.) [L.S]

plebeian. No members of it are mentioned in Roman history previous to the second century B. C., and the first of them who obtained the consulship was C. Fannius Strabo, in B. C. 161. The only family-name which occurs in this gens under the republic is Strabo: the others are mentioned without a cognomen. There are a few coins belonging to this gens: one of them is given under Critonius; another figured below bears on the obverse a head of Pallas, and on the reverse Victory in a quadriga, with M. FAN. C. F. [L.S]

A Minturnian woman who entertained Marius when he came to Minturnae in his flight (B.C. 88), because though formerly he had pronounced her guilty of adultery, he had compelled her husband Tatinius to restore her dowry (Val. Max. viii. 2. 3).