Silanus

• a Roman surname in the Julian gens, Liv. 23, 15; 25, 2.
• • • • a D. Junius Silanus, Cic. Fin. 1, 7, 24; id. Off. 2, 16, 57; id. Cat. 4, 4, 7; Sall. C. 50, 4; 51, 16. —
      • b M. Silanus, Cic. Brut. 35, 135; id. Fam. 10, 30, 1.
• —Hence, Sīlānĭānus, a, um, adj., of or named from one Silanus: senatusconsultum, Dig. 29, 5, 1, §§ 7 and 21.

(Σιλανός), an Ambracian soothsayer, who accompanied Cyrus the Younger in his expedition against his brother Artaxerxes, in B. C. 401. For a successful prediction Cyrus rewarded him with 3000 darics, or 10 talents. This money Silanus carefully preserved throughout the campaign and subsequent retreat, and was very anxious to return with it to his country. Accordingly, when Xenophon consulted him at Cotyora, on the plan which he had formed of founding a Greek colony on the coast of the Euxine, he revealed the project to the Cyreans, and did all in his power to thwart it. On this Xenophon publicly professed to have abandoned the design, and proposed that no one should be permitted to remain behind the rest of the army, or to sail away before it. The latter part of this proposition was most disagreeable to Silanus, who loudly remonstrated against it, but to no purpose, the soldiers threatening to punish him, should they catch him in any attempt to depart by himself. Not long after, however, he contrived to make his escape in a ship which he hired at Heracleia. (Xen. Anab. 1.7.18, 5.6. §§ 16, 18, 29, 34, 6.4.13.) [E.E]

the name of several Roman families, appears to be merely a lengthened form of Silus, which occurs as a cognomen in the Sergia and Terentia gentes [Silus], and is not connected with the Greek name Silanus. Instead of the Roman name Silanus we frequently find in manuscripts Syllanus and Sillanus.

[SILANUS, JUNIUS, No. 11.]

the avunculus of Germanicus Caesar (Plin. Nat. 34.7. s. 18).

as he is called by Tacitus, is mentioned as governor of Syria in A. D. 16, but was removed from the government by Tiberius in the following year on account of the connection of his family with Germanicus, inasmuch as a daughter of Silanus had been betrothed to Nero, the eldest of the children of Germanicus (Tac. Ann. 2.4, 43). From his names Creticus Silanus it has been conjectured that he originally belonged to the Junia gens, but was adopted into the Caecilia gens. It has been further supposed that he is the same person as the consul of A. D. 9 (D. C. 55.30). [Metellus, No. 29.] In that case his full name would have been Q. Caecilius Metellus Creticus Silanus.

1. M. Junius Silanus, took the command of Neapolis, at the wish of the inhabitants, in the second Punic war, B. C. 216, in order to defend it against Hannibal. In B. C. 212 he was praetor, and obtained Etruria as his province, where he was chiefly employed in purchasing corn. In B. C. 210 he accompanied P. Scipio to Spain, and served under him with great distinction during the whole of the war in that country. His most brilliant exploit was the defeat of Hanno and Mago in Celtiberia in B. C. 207. When Scipio quitted Spain in the following year, he left Silanus in command of the army till the arrival of his successor. In B. C. 196 Silanus fell in battle against the Boii, where he fought under the consul M. Marcellus. (Liv. 23.15, 25.2, 3, 26.1, 19, 28.1, 2; Plb. 10.6, xi, 20, 23, 26, 33; Appian, Hisp. 28, 32).

2. D. Junius Silanus, was commissioned by the senate about B. C. 146, in consequence of his knowledge of the Punic language, to translate into Latin the twenty-eight books of Mago on Agriculture. (Plin. Nat. 18.3. s. 5.)

3. D. Junius Silanus Manlianus, a son of the jurist T. Manlius Torquatus, consul B. C. 165, but adopted by a D. Junius Silanus. He was praetor B. C. 142, and obtained Macedonia as his province, where he was guilty of so many acts of robbery and oppression, that the inhabitants accused him before the senate on his return to Rome in B. C. 140. The senate referred the investigation of the charges to his own father Torquatus at the request of the latter. Torqnatus condemned his son, and banished him from his presence; and when Silanus hanged himself in grief, his father would not attend his funeral. (Cic. de Fin. 1.7; Liv. Epit. 54 ; V. Max. 5.8.3.)

4. M. Junius Silanus, consul B. C. 109, with M. Caecilius Metellus, fought in this year against the Cimbri in Transalpine Gaul, and was defeated. He was accused in B. C. 104, by the tribune Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus, out of revenge, because he had injured an hereditary friend of Ahenobarbus. The latter charged him with having fought without any commission from the people (injussu populi), and with having thus been the principal cause of the calamities which the Romans had experienced in this war; but he was acquitted almost unanimously, as only two tribes out of the thirty-five voted for his condemnation. Cicero (Brut. 35) praises his oratorical powers. (Liv. Ep.65 ; Sail. Jug. 43 ; Eutrop. 4.11. s. 27; Flor. 3.3.4 ; Cic. Div. in Caecil. 20, Verr. 2.47; Ascon. in Cornel. pp. 68, 80, ed. Orelli.)

5. D. Junius Silanus, probably a younger son of No. 4, was the step-father of M. Brutus, the murderer of Caesar, having married his mother Servilia. He was aedile about B. C. 70, when he exhibited very magnificent games, and notwithstanding was unsuccessful in his application for the consulship for the year B. C. 64. He was elected consul in the comitia held in the summer of B. C. 63, and in consequence of his being consul designatus was first asked for his opinion by Cicero in the debate in the senate on the punishment of the Catilinarian conspirators. He declared himself in favour of inflicting the extreme punishment upon the conspirators; but after the speech of Caesar, he said that he should vote in favour of the proposition of Tib. Nero, who had recommended that they should be kept in prison till Catiline was conquered, affirming that he had not recommended that they should be put to death, but that they should be imprisoned, as this was the extreme of punishment to a Roman senator. (Cic. de Off. 2.16, ad Att. 1.1; Sall. Cat. 50 ; Cic. in Cat. 4.4, ad Att. 12.21.7; Appian, App. BC 2.5; Suet. Caes. 14 ; Plut. Cic. 20, 21, Cat. 22). Silanus was consul B. C. 62, with L. Licinius Murena, along with whom he proposed the Lex Licinia Junia, which enacted that a rogatio must be promulgated three nundines before the people voted upon it. It confirmed the Lex Caecilia Didia (Cic. pro Sest. 64, in Vatin. 14, Phil. 5.3, ad Att. 2.9, 4.16). Pliny (Plin. Nat. 2.35) speaks of Silanus as proconsul. As an orator Silanus owed more to nature than to study. (Cic. Brut. 68.)

6. M. Junius Siianus, son of No. 5 and of Servilia, served in Gaul as Caesar's legatus in B. C. 53, but does not appear to have been employed in any undertaking of importance. After Caesar's murder in B. C. 44, he accompanied his brother-in-law M. Lepidus over the Alps; and in the following year Lepidus sent him with a detachment of troops into Cisalpine Gaul, as the senate had urgently pressed Lepidus to assist the consuls Hirtius and Pansa, who were advancing against Antony to compel him to raise the siege of Mutina. Lepidus, however, gave Silanus no precise instructions as to his line of conduct; and the latter guessing the real wishes of his general, espoused the side of Antony. After the defeat of Antony Silanus recrossed the Alps and returned to Lepidus, who affected to be displeased with his conduct, and would not at first allow him to come into his presence. Silanus afterwards became obnoxious to the triumvirs, though the reason is not mentioned, and fled to Sex. Pompey in Sicily. At the peace of Misenum, in B. C. 39, he returned to Rome, and eventually won the favour of Octavian so completely that he raised him to the consulship in B. C. 25. (Caes. Gal. 6.1; D. C. 46.38, 51; Cic. Fam. 10.30, 34; Vell. 2.77; D. C. 53.25.) Silanus had two sisters, one married to M. Lepidus, the triumvir, and the other to C. Cassius, one of Caesar's murderers. [Junia, Nos. 2 and 3.]

7. C. Junius Silanus, C. F., consul B. C. 19 with C. Furnius, may perhaps have been a cousin of No. 6. (D. C. 54.18.)

8. M. Junius Silanus, M. F.. son of No. 6, consul under Tiberius, A. D. 19, with L. Norbanus Balbus These consuls gave their name to the Lex Junia Norbana, which enacted that slaves manumitted without the requisite formalities should, in certain cases, have the status of Latini : such persons were called Latini Juniani (see Dict. of Antiq. p. 693a, 2d ed.). Tacitus speaks of Silanus as pre-eminently distinguished by his high nobility and eloquence. In A. D. 20 he obtained from Tiberius the recal of his brother [No. 9] from exile. Like the other senators he endeavoured to gain the favour of the emperor by flattery. He proposed in A. D. 22 that all public and private documents should not hear in future the names of the consuls, but the names of those who possessed the tribunician power, that is, of the emperors. In A. D. 33 his daughter Claudia, or Junia Claudilla, as she is called by Suetonius (Cal. 12), was married to C. Caesar, afterwards the emperor Caligula. Silanus was governor of Africa in the reign of Caligula; but the suspicious tyrant feared his father-in-law, and accordingly first deprived him of all power in the province by compelling him to share the government with an imperial legatus, and afterwards compelled him to put an end to his life. Julius Graecinus, the father of Agricola, had been ordered by Caligula to accuse Silanus, but he declined the odious task. (Tac. Ann. 2.59, 3.24, 57, 6.20, Hist. 4.48, Agr. 4; D. C. 57.18, 59.8; Suet. Cal. 12, 23.)

9. D. Junius Silanus, a brother of No. 8, was one of the paramours of Julia, the granddaughter of Augustus, and voluntarily withdrew into exile when the adulteries of Julia were discovered. Tiberius allowed him to return to Rome in A. D. 20 on the intercession of his brother Marcus, but did not advance him to any of the honours of the state. (Tac. Ann. 3.24.)

10. C. Junius Silanus, described as Flamen Martialis in the Capitoline Fasti, was consul A. D. 10, with P. Cornelius Dolabella. Judging from his praenomen we may suppose him to have been a son of No. 7; but this is opposed to the Capitoline Fasti, in which he is described as C. F. M. N. Silanus was afterwards proconsul of Asia, and in A. D. 22 was accused of malversation by the provincials. To this crime his accusers in the senate added that of treason (majestas), and it was proposed to banish him to the island of Gyaros; but Tiberius changed the place of his exile to the less inhospitable island of Cynthus, which his sister Torquata had begged might be the place of his punishment. (Tac. Ann. 3.66-69, 4.15.)

11. App. Junius Silanus, was consul A. D. 28 with P. Silius Nerva. He was accused of majestas in A. D. 32, but was saved by Celsus, one of the informers. Claudius soon after his accession recalled Silanus from Spain, of which he was at that time governor, gave him in marriage Domitia Lepida, the mother of his wife Messalina, and treated him otherwise with the greatest distinction. But shortly afterwards, having refused the embraces of Messalina, he was put to death by Claudius on the accusations of Messalina and Narcissus, both of whom said that they had in their dreams seen Silanus attempting to murder the emperor. (Tac. Ann. 4.68, 6.9, 11.29; Suet. Cl. 29, 37; D. C. 60.14, who calls him Caius Appius Silanus.) One of the sons of Appius is called by Tacitus (13.1) the abnepos or greatgreat-grandson of Augustus. It would therefore appear that App. Silanus married Aemilia Lepida, the proneptis or great-granddaughter of Augustus. The genealogy would therefore stand thus : --

1. Augustus. 2. Julia, filia, m. M. Agrippa. 3. Julia, neptis, m. L. Aemilius Paulus. 4. Lepida, proneptis, m. App. Junius Silanus.

Aemilia Lepida, the wife of App. Silanns, was at an early age betrothed to the emperor Claudius long before his accession to the throne, but was divorced soon afterwards [Lepida, No. 3, where her subsequent marriage to App. Silanus ought to have been stated]. By his second wife Domitia Lepida, the mother of Messalina, App. Silanus of course had no children. Suetonius (Claud. 29) calls App. Silanus the consocer of Claudius, because his son L. Silanus was betrothed to Octavia, the daughter of Claudius.

12. M. Junius Silanus, a son of No. 11, was consul under Claudius A. D. 46 with Valerius Asiaticus. He was born in the same year in which Augustus died, A. D. 14, and it is mentioned by Pliny as a singular fact that Augustus lived to see his great-great-grandson. Silanus was proconsul of Asia at the succession of Nero in, A. D. 54, and was poisoned by command of Agrippina, who feared that he might avenge the death of his brother [No. 13], and that his descent from Augustus might lead him to be preferred to the youthful Nero (D. C. 60.27; Plin. Nat. 7.11; Tac. Ann. 13.4). Tacitus relates (l.c.) that Silanus was so far from being ambitious, that Caligula used to call him his " pecus aurea," but Dio Cassius (59.8) with more probability refers this epithet to the father in-law of Caligula [No. 8].

13. L. Junius Silanus, likewise a son of No. 11, was betrothed to Octavia, the daughter of the emperor Claudius, in A. D. 41. The emperor conferred upon him the triumphal ornaments when he was still a boy, and exhibited in his name magnificent gladiatorial games. But as Agrippina had resolved to marry Octavia to her own son Domitius, afterwards the emperor Nero, it was necessary to put Silanus out of the way. It was easy to persuade the foolish emperor of any thing, and he therefore readily believed the charges brought against Silanus. Accordingly in A. D. 4a Silanus, who was then praetor, though he had not yet attained the legal age for the office, was expelled from the senate by Vitellius, as censor, on the ground of incest with his sister Julia Calvina [Calvina]; and he was further compelled by Claudius to resign the office of praetor. At the same time the marriage between him and Octavia was dissolved. At the beginning of the following year Octavia was married to Nero; and Silanns, who knew that he would not be allowed to live much longer, put an end to his life on the day of their marriage. (Tac. Ann. 12.3, 4, 8; Suet. Cl. 24, 29; D. C. 60.5, 31.)

14. D. Junius Torquatus Silanus, probably also a son of No. 11, was consul under Claudius A. D. 53 with Q. Haterius Antoninus. He was compelled by Nero in A. D. 64 to put an end to his life, because he had boasted of being descended from Augustus. Tacitus says that he had boaste, of Augustus being his atavus ; but if he was really the abnepos of Augustus, the latter was his abavus, and not his atavus. (Tac. Ann. 12.58, 15.35 ; D. C. 62.27.)

15. L. Junius Torquatus Silanus, the son of No. 12, and consequently the atnepos, or greatgreat-great grandson of Augustus. In consequence of the early death of his father, he was brought up in the house of the jurist Cassius, who had married his aunt Lepida; but his descent from Augustus, as well as his virtues, rendered him an object of suspicion to Nero. He was accordingly accused in A. D. 65, along with Cassius and his aunt Lepida. The crimes laid to the charge of Silanus were that he was aspiring to the empire, and that he had committed incest with his aunt Lepida. Silanus was sentenced to banishment, and was removed to Ostia, as if for the purpose of being carried over to Naxus; but front Ostia he was conveyed to Barium, a municipium of Apulia, and was there shortly afterwards put to death. The name of the month of Junius was now changed into that of Germanicus, because the two Torquati had by their crimes rendered this name inauspicious (Tac. Ann. 15.52, 16.7-9. 12). This L. Silanus is probably the same as the L. Silanus whose statue was erected in the forum in the time of the younger Pliny (Plin. Ep. 1.17). This Sianus appears to have been the last descendant of Julia, the granddaughter of Augustus.

16. C. Junius Silanus, consul suffectus under Domitian in A. D. 92 (Fasti).

17. Junius Silanus, consul under Commodus in A. D. 189 with Q. Servilius Silanus (Fasti).

18. Junius Silanus, consul suffectus under Maximinus in A. D. 237 (Fasti).

There are several coins of the Junia Gens with the name of Silanus upon them. We annex two specimens. On the obverse of the first is the head of Salus, and on the obverse of the second the head of a barbarian with a torquis round the coin. The torquis was inserted in order to mark the connection of the Silani with the Manlii Torquati. We have already seen that the son of the jurist T. Manlius Torquatus was adopted by a D. Junius Silanus. [See above, No. 3.] In consequence of this connection between the Silani and Torquati, we find the name of Torquatus assumed by several of the Silani. [See above, Nos. 14, 15.] Who the D. Silanus is, referred to on these coins, cannot be determined; the two coins probably refer to two different persons of the name.

consul B. C. 20, is a false reading in Dio Cassius (55.30) for Silianus. The full name of this consul was A. Licinius Nerva Silianus [Nerva, Licinius, No. 7].

the name of two consuls under Commodus, namely, M. Servilius Silanus ill A. D. 188, and Q. Servilius Silanus in A. D. 189 (Fasti).

was appointed by Metellus in B. C. 108 commander of the town of Vaga or Vacca, in Numidia; but the inhabitants, urged on by Jugurtha, treacherously massacred all the Roman garrison, with the exception of Turpilius Silanus, who escaped to the main body of the Roman army. The conduct and escape of Turpilius were suspicious; he was brought to trial before Metellus, and condemned; and, as he was a Latin and not a Roman citizen, was scourged and put to death. Plutarch relates that the innocence of Turpilius was afterwards established; and that Marius, who was present at the trial as an assessor, had strongly urged Metellus to put him to death, in order thus to bring upon his commander the odium of having condemned an innocent man (Sall. Jug. 66-69 ; Plut. Mar. 8).