Ahenobarbus

Ἀηνόβαρβος, the name of a plebeian family of the Domitia Gens, so called from the red hair which many of this family had. To explain this name, which signifies "Red-Beard," and to assign a high antiquity to their family, it was said that the Dioscuri announced to one of their ancestors the victory of the Romans over the Latins at lake Regillus (B. C. 496), and, to confirm the truth of what they said, that they stroked his black hair and beard, which immediately became red. (Suet. Nero 1; Plut. Aemil. 25, Coriol. 3 ; Dionys. A. R. 6.13; Tertull. Apol. 22.)

1. Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus, L. F. L. N., plebeian aedile B. C. 196, prosecuted, in conjuncti with his colleague C. Curio, many pecuarii, and with the fines raised therefrom built a temple Faunus in the island of the Tiber, which he dedicated in his praetorship, B. C. 194. (Liv. 31.42, 34.42, 43, 53.) He was consul in 192 and was sent against the Boii, who submitted him; but he remained in their country till the following year, when he was succeeded by the consul Scipio Nasica. (35.10, 20, 22, 40, xxx 37.) In 190, he was legate of the consul L. Scipio in the war against Antiochus the Great. (35.39; Plut. Apophth. Rom. Cn. Domit.) In his consulship one of his oxen is said to have utter the warning " Roma, cave tibi." (Liv. 35.2 V. Max. 1.6.5, who falsely says, Bello Punico secundo.)

2. Cn. Domitius Cn. F. L. N. Ahenobarbus, son of the preceding, was chosen pontifex in B. C. 172, when a young man (Liv. 42.28), and in 169 was sent with two others as commissioner into Macedonia. (44.18.) In 167 he was one of the ten commissioners for arranging the affairs of Macedonia in conjunction with Aemilius Paullus (xlv 17); and when the consuls of 162 abdicated account of some fault in the auspices in their election, he and Cornelius Lentulus were chosen consuls in their stead. (Cic. de Nat. Deor. 2.4, de Div 2.35; Val. Max. 1.1.3.)

3. CN. Domitius CN. F. CN. N. Ahenobarbus, son of the preceding, was sent in his consulship B. C. 122, against the Allobroges in Gaul, because they had received Teutomalius, the king of the Salluvii and the enemy of the Romans, and had laid waste the territory of the Aedui, the friend of the Romans. In 121 he conquered the Allobroges and their ally Vituitus, king of the Arverni, near Vindalium, at the confluence of the Sulga and the Rhodanus; and he gained the battle mainly through the terror caused by his elephants. He commemorated his victory by the erection of trophies, and went in procession through the province carried by an elephant. He triumphed in 120. (Liv. Epit. 61; Florus, 3.2; Strab. iv. p.191 ; Cic. Font. 12, Brut. 26; Vell. 2.10, 39 ; Oros. 5.13; Suet. Nero 2, who confounds him with his son.) He was censor in 115 with Caecilius Metellus, and expelled twenty-two persons from the senate. (Liv. Epit. 62; Cic. Clu. 42.) He was also Pontifex. (Suet. l.c.) The Via Domitia in Gaul was made by him. (Cic. Font. 8.)

4. CN. Domitius CN. F. CN. N. Ahenobarbus, son of the preceding, was tribune of the plebs B. C. 104, in the second consulship of Marius. (Ascon. in Cornel. p. 81, ed. Orelli.) When the college of pontiffs did not elect him in place of his father, he brought forward the law (Lex Domitia), by which the right of election was transferred from the priestly colleges to the people. (Dict. of Ant. pp. 773, b. 774, a.) The people afterwards elected him Pontifex Maximus out of gratitude. (Liv. Epit. 67; Cic. pro Deiot. 11; V. Max. 6.5.5.) He prosecuted in his tribunate and afterwards several of his private enemies, as Aemilius Scaurus and Junius Silanus. (Val. Max. l.c. ; Dio Cass. Fr. 100; Cic. Div. in Caecil. 20, Verr. 2.47, Cornel. 2, pro Scaur. 1.) He was consul B. C. 96 with C. Cassius, and censor B. C. 92, with Licinius Crassus, the orator. In his censorship he and his colleague shut up the schools of the Latin rhetoricians (Cic. de Orat. 3.24; Gel. 15.11), but this was the only thing in which they acted in concert. Their censorship was long celebrated for their disputes. Domitius was of a violent temper, and was moreover in favour of the ancient simplicity of living, while Crassus loved luxury and encouraged art. Among the many sayings recorded of both, we are told that Crassus observed, " that it was no wonder that a man had a beard of brass, who had a mouth of iron and a heart of lead." (Plin. Nat. 18.1; Suet. l.c.; Val. Max. 9.1.4; Macr. 2.11.) Cicero says, that Domitius was not to be reckoned among the orators, but that he spoke well enough and had sufficient talent to maintain his high rank. (Cic. Brut. 44.)

5. L. Domitius CN. F. CN. N. Ahenobarbus, son of No. 3 and brother of No. 4, was praetor in Sicily, probably in B. C. 96, shortly after the Servile war, when slaves had been forbidden to carry arms. He ordered a slave to be crucified for killing a wild boar with a hunting spear. (Cic. Ver. 5.3; V. Max. 6.3.5.) He was consul in 94. In the civil war between Marius and Sulla, he espoused the side of the latter, and was murdered at Rome, by order of the younger Marius, by the praetor Damasippus. (Appian, App. BC 1.88 ; Vell. 2.26; Oros. 5.20.)

6. CN. Domitius CN. F. CN. F. Ahenobarbus, apparently a son of No. 4, married Cornelia, daughter of L. Cornelius Cinna, consul in B. C. 87, and in the civil war between Marius and Sulla espoused the side of the former. When Sulla obtained the supreme power in 82, Ahenobarbus was proscribed, and fled to Africa, where he was joined by many who were in the same condition as himself. With the assistance of the Numidian king, Hiarbas, he collected an army, but was defeated near Utica by Cn. Pompeius, whom Sulla had sent against him, and was afterwards killed in the storming of his camp, B. C. 81. According to some accounts, he was killed after the battle by command of Pompey. (Liv. Epit. 89; Plut. Pomp. 10, 12; Zonaras, 10.2; Ores. 5.21; V. Max. 6.2.8.)

7. L. Domitius CN. F. CN. N. Ahenobarbus, son of No. 4, is first mentioned in B. C. 70 by Cicero, as a witness against Verres. In 61 he was curule aedile, when he exhibited a hundred Numidian lions, and continued the games so long, that the people were obliged to leave the circus before the exhibition was over, in order to take food, which was the first time they had done so. (D. C. 37.46; Plin. Nat. 8.54; this pause in the games was called diludium, Hor. Ep. 1.19. 47.) He married Porcia, the sister of M. Cato, and in his aedileship supported the latter in his proposals against bribery at elections, which were directed against Pompey, who was purchasing votes for Afranius. The political opinions of Ahenobarbus coincided with those of Cato; he was throughout his life one of the strongest supporters of the aristocratical party. He took an active part in opposing the measures of Caesar and Pompey after their coalition, and in 59 was accused by Vettius, at the instigation of Caesar, of being an accomplice to the pretended conspiracy against the life of Pompey.

Ahenobarbus was praetor in B. C. 58, and proposed an investigation into the validity of the Julian laws of the preceding year; but the senate dared not entertain his propositions. He was candidate for the consulship of 55, and threatened that he would in his consulship carry into execution the measures he had proposed in his praetorship, and deprive Caesar of his province. He was defeated, however, by Pompey and Crassus, who also became candidates, and was driven from the Campus Martius on the day of election by force of arms. He became a candidate again in the following year, and Caesar and Pompey, whose power was firmly established, did not oppose him. He was accordingly elected consul for 54 with Ap. Claudius Pulcher, a relation of Pompey, but was not able to effect anything against Caesar and Pompey. He did not go to a province at the expiration of his consulship; and as the friendship between Caesar and Pompey cooled, he became closely allied with the latter. In B. C. 52, he was chosen by Pompey to preside, as quaesitor, in the court for the trial of Clodius. For the next two or three years during Cicero's absence in Cilicia, our information about Ahenobarbus is principally derived from the letters of his enemy Coelius to Cicero. In B. C. 50 he was a candidate for the place in the college of augurs, vacant by the death of Hortensius, but was defeated by Antony through the influence of Caesar.

The senate appointed him to succeed Caesar in the province of further Gaul, and on the march of the latter into Italy (49), he was the only one of the aristocratical party who shewed any energy or courage. He threw himself into Corfinium with about twenty cohorts, expecting to be supported by Pompey; but as the latter did nothing to assist him, he was compelled by his own troops to sur render to Caesar. His own soldiers were incorpo rated into Caesar's army, but Ahenobarbus was dismissed by Caesar uninjured--an act of clemency which he did not expect, and which he would certainly not have shewed, if he had been the conqueror. Despairing of life, he had ordered his physician to administer to him poison, but the latter gave him only a sleeping draught. Ahenobarbus' feelings against Caesar remained unaltered, but he was too deeply offended by the conduct of Pompey to join him immediately. He retired for a short time to Cosa in Etruria, and afterwards sailed to Massilia, of which the inhabitants appointed him governor. He prosecuted the war vigorously against Caesar; but the town was eventually taken, and Ahenobarbus escaped in a vessel, which was the only one that got off.

Ahenobarbus now went to Pompey in Thessaly, and proposed that after the war all senators should be brought to trial who had remained neutral in it. Cicero, whom he branded as a coward, was not a little afraid of him. He fell in the battle of Pharsalia (48), where he commanded the left wing, and, according to Cicero's assertion in the second Philippic, by the hand of Antony. Ahenobarbus was a man of great energy of character; he re mained firm to his political principles, but was little scrupulous in the means he employed to maintain them. (The passages of Cicero in which Ahenobarbus is mentioned are given in Orelli's Onomasticon Tullianum ; Suet. Nero 2; Dio Cass. lib. xxxix. xli.; Caes. Bell. Civ. )

8. Cn. Domitius Cn. N. Ahenobarbus, L. F., son of the preceding, was taken with his father at Corfinium (B. C. 49), and was present at the battle of Pharsalia (48), but did not take any further part in the war. He did not however return to Italy till 46, when he was pardoned by Caesar. He probably had no share in the murder of Caesar (44), though some writers expressly assert that he was one of the conspirators; but he followed Brutus into Macedonia after Caesar's death, and was condemned by the Lex Pedia in 43 as one of the murderers of Caesar. In 42 he commanded a fleet of fifty ships in the Ionian sea, and completely defeated Domitius Calvinus on the day of the first battle of Philippi, as the latter attempted to sail out of Brundusium. He was saluted Imperator in consequence, and a record of this victory is preserved in the annexed coin, which represents a trophy placed upon the prow of a vessel The head on the other side of the coin has a beard, in reference to the reputed origin of the family.

After the battle of Philippi (42), Ahenobarbus conducted the war independently of Sex. Pompeius, and with a fleet of seventy ships and two legions plundered the coasts of the Ionian sea.

In 40 Ahenobarbus became reconciled to Antony, which gave great offence to Octavianus, and was placed over Bithynia by Antony. In the peace concluded with Sex. Pompeius in 39, Antony provided for the safety of Ahenobarbus, and obtained for him the promise of the consulship for 32. Ahenobarbus remained a considerable time in Asia, and accompanied Antony in his unfortunate campaign against the Parthians in 36. He became consul, according to agreement, in 32, in which year the open rupture took place between Antony and Augustus. Ahenobarbus fled from Rome to Antony at Ephesus, where he found Cleopatra with him, and endeavoured, in vain, to obtain her removal from the army. Many of the soldiers, disgusted with the conduct of Antony, offered the command to him; but he preferred deserting the party altogether, and accordingly went over to Augustus shortly before the battle of Actium. He was not, however, present at the battle, as he died a few days after joining Augustus. Suetonius says that he was the best of his family. (Cic. Phil. 2.11, 10.6, Brut. 25, ad Fam. 6.22; Appian, App. BC 5.55, 63, 65; Plut. Ant. 70, 71; Dio Cass. lib. xlvii.__1; Vell. 2.76, 84; Suet. Nero 3; Tac. Ann. 4.44.)

9. L. Domitius Cn. F. L. N. Ahenobarbus, son of the preceding, was betrothed in B. C. 36, at the meeting of Octavianus and Antony at Tarentum, to Antonia, the daughter of the latter by Octavia. He was aedile in B. C. 22, and consul in B. C. 16. After his consulship, and probably as the successor of Tiberius, he commanded the Roman army in Germany, crossed the Elbe, and penetrated further into the country than any of his predecessors had done. He received in consequence the insignia of a triumph. He died A. D. 25. Suetonius describes him as haughty, prodigal, and cruel, and relates that in his aedileship he commanded the censor L. Plancus to make way for him; and that in his praetorship and consulship he brought Roman knights and matrons on the stage. He exhibited shows of wild beasts in every quarter of the city, and his gladiatorial combats were conducted with so much bloodshed, that Augustus was obliged to put some restraint upon them. (Suet. Nero 4; Tac. Ann. 4.44; D. C. 54.59; Vell. 2.72.)

10. Cn. Domitius Cn. N. Ahenobarbus, L. F.' son of the preceding, and father of the emperor Nero. He married Agrippina, the daughter of Germanicus. He was consul A. D. 32, and afterwards proconsul in Sicily. He died at Pyrgi in Etruria of dropsy. His life was stained with crimes of every kind. He was accused as the accomplice of Albucilla of the crimes of adultery and murder, and also of incest with his sister Domitia Lepida, and only escaped execution by the death of Tiberius. When congratulated on the birth of his son, afterwards Nero, he replied that whatever was sprung from him and Agrippina could only bring ruin to the state. (Suet. Nero 5, 6; Tac. Ann. 4.75, 6.1, 47, 12.64; Vell. 2.72; D. C. 58.17.)

11. Domitia, daughter of No. 9. [Domitia.]

12. Domitia Lepida, daughter of No. 9. [Domitia Lepida.]

13. L. Domitius Ahenobarbus, son of No. 10, afterwards the emperor Nero. [Nero.]

14. Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus, praetor in B. C. 54, presided at the second trial of M. Coelius. (Cic. ad Qu. Fr. 2.13.) He may have been the son of No. 5.

15. L. Domitius Ahenobarbus, praetor B. C. 80, commanded the province of nearer Spain, with the title of proconsul In 79, he was summoned into further Spain by Q. Metellus Pius, who was in want of assistance against Sertorius, but he was defeated and killed by Hirtuleius, quaestor of Sertorius, near the Anas. (Plut. Sert. 12; Liv. Epit. 90; Eutrop. 6.1; Florus, 3.22; Oros. 5.23.)

“Brazen-bearded.” A name applied to the members of a noted Roman family, because the Dioscuri (Castor and Pollux) were said to have announced to one of their ancestors, L. Domitius, the victory of the Romans over the Latins at Lake Regillus (B.C. 496), and, in confirmation of the truth of what they told, to have stroked his black hair and beard, which immediately became red. (1) Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus, consul B.C. 122, conquered the Allobroges in Gaul, at the confluence of the Sulga and Rhodanus.

(2) Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus, tribune of the plebs, B.C. 104, brought forward the law (Lex Domitia) by which the election of the priests was transferred from the collegia to the people. The people afterwards elected him Pontifex Maximus out of gratitude. He was consul in 96, and censor in 92, with Licinius Crassus, the orator.

(3) L. Domitius Ahenobarbus, married Porcia, the sister of M. Cato, and was a staunch and courageous supporter of the aristocratical party. He was aedile in B.C. 61, praetor in 58, and consul in 54. On the breaking-out of the civil war in 49 he threw himself into Corfinium, but was compelled by his own troops to surrender to Caesar. He next went to Massilia, and after the surrender of that town repaired to Pompey in Greece. He fell in the battle of Pharsalia (48), where he commanded the left wing, and, according to Cicero's assertion in the second Philippic, by the hand of Antony.

(4) Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus, son of no. 3, was taken with his father at Corfinium (49), was present at the battle of Pharsalia (48), and returned to Italy in 46, when he was pardoned by Caesar. He accompanied Antony in his campaign against the Parthians in 36. He was consul in 32, and deserted to Augustus shortly before the battle of Actium.

(5) Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus, consul A.D. 32, married Agrippina (q.v.), daughter of Germanicus, and was father of the emperor Nero.