Furia

patrician. This was a very ancient gens, and in early times its name was written Fusia, according to the common interchange of the letters r and s (Liv. 3.4), as in the name Valerius and Valesius. History leaves us in darkness as to the origin of the Furia gens; but, from sepulchral inscriptions found at Tusculum (Gronov. Thesaur. vol. xii. p. 24), we see that the name Furius was very common in that place, and hence it is generally inferred that the Furia gens, like the Fulvia, had come to Rome from Tusculum. As the first member of the gens that occurs in history, Sex. Furius Medullinus, B. C. 488, is only five years later than the treaty of isopolity which Sp. Cassius concluded with the Latins, to whom the Tusculans belonged, the supposition of the Tusculan origin of the Furia gens does not appear at all improbable. The cognomens of this gens are Aculeo, Bibaculus, Brocchus, Camillus, Crassipes, Fusus, Luscus, Medullinus, Pacilus, Philus and Purpureo. The only cognomens that occur on coins are Brocchus, Crassipes, Philus, Purpureo. There are some persons bearing the gentile name Furius, who were plebeians, since they are mentioned as tribunes of the plebs; and those persons either had gone over from the patricians to the plebeians, or they were descended from freedmen of some family of the Furii, as is expressly stated in the case of one of them. [L.S]