Caecilia

is said to have been the genuine Roman name for Tanaquil, the wife of Tarquinius Priscus. (Plin. Nat. 8.74; Val. Max. Epit. de Praen. in fin.; Festus, s. v. Gaia; Plut. Quaest. Rom. p. 271e.) Both her names, Caia and Caecilia, are of the same root as Caeculus, and the Roman Caecilii are supposed to have derived their origin from the Praenestine Caeculus. (Fest. s. v. Caeculus.) The story of Caia Caecilia is related under Tanaquil; and it is sufficient to say here, that she appears in the early legends of Rome as a woman endowed with prophetic powers, and closely connected with the worship of the god of the hearth. That she was, at the same time, looked upon as a model of domestic life, may be inferred from the fact, that a newly married woman, before entering the house of her husband, on being asked what her name was, answered, " My name is Caia." (Val. Max. l.c.; Plut. Quaest. Rom. p. 271e.) [L.S]

the daughter of T. Pomponius Atticus, who is called Caecilia, because her father took the name of his uncle, Q. Caecilius, by whom he was adopted. She was married to M. Vipsanius Agrippa. [Atticus, p. 415a.)

or Metella, 1. and 2. Daughters of Q. Caecilius Metellus Macedonicus, consul B. C. 143, one of whom married C. Servilius Vatia, and was by him the mother of P. Servilius Vatia Isauricus, consul in 79, and the other P. Cornelius Scipio Nasica, consul in 111, and was the grandmother of Q. Metellus Pius Scipio, consul in 52. (Cic. pro Dom. 47, post Red. ad Quir. 3, Brut. 58.)

3. The daughter of L. Caecilius Metellus Calvus, consul in B. C. 142, and the brother of Metellus Numidicus, consul in 109, was married to L. Licinius Lucullus, praetor in 103, and was by him the mother of the celebrated Lucullus, the conqueror of Mithridates. Her moral character was in bad repute. (Plut. Luc. 1; Cic. in Ver. 4.66; Aurel. Vict. de Vir. Ill. 62.)

4. Daughter of Q. Caecilius Metellus Balearicus, consul in B. C. 123, was the wife of Ap. Claudius Pulcher, consul in 79, and the mother of Ap. Claudius Pulcher, consul in 54, and of P. Clodius Pulcher, tribune of the plebs in 58. (Cic. de Div. 1.2, 44, pro Rose. Am. 10, 50: in the former of the two latter passages she is erroneously called Nepotis filia instead of Nepotis soror.) Her brother was Q. Metellus Nepos, consul in 98, and we accordingly find his two sons, Metellus Celer and Metellus Nepos, called the fratres (cousins) of her sons Ap. Claudius and P. Clodius. (Cic. Att. 4.3, ad Fam. 5.3, pro Cael. 24.)

Cicero relates (de Div. ll. cc.), that in consequence of a dream of Caecilia's in the Marsic war, the temple of Juno Sospita was restored.

5. Daughter of L. Metellus Dalmaticus, consul in B. C. 119, and not of Q. Metellus Pius, the pontifex maximus, consul in 80, as has been inferred from Plutarch. (Sull. 6.) Her father's praenomen is Lucius, and he is said to have rebuilt the temple of the Dioscuri (Cic. pro Scaur. 2. §§ 45, 46, with the commentary of Asconius), which point to L. Dalmaticus as her father. She was first married to M. Aemilius Scaurus, consul in 115, by whom she had three children, the eldest of whom was the M. Scaurus defended by Cicero (Cic. l.c. pro Sest. 47; Plut. Sull. 33, Pomp. 9; Plin. Nat. 36.15. s. 24.8), and afterwards to the dictator Sulla, who always treated her with the greatest respect. When she fled from Cinna and Carbo in Italy to her husband's camp before Athens, she was insulted from the walls of the city by Aristion and the Athenians, for which they paid dearly at the capture of the city. She fell ill in 81, during the celebration of Sulla's triumphal feast; and as her recovery was hopeless, Sulla for religious reasons sent her a bill of divorce, and had her removed from his house, but honoured her memory by a splendid funeral. (Plut. Sull. 6, 13, 22, 35.) She purchased a great deal of the property confiscated in the proscriptions. (Plin. l.c.)

6. The wife of P. Lentulus Spinther the younger, whose father was consul in B. C. 57. She was a woman of loose character, and intrigued with Dolabella, Cicero's son-in-law (Cic. Att. 11.23), and also, as it appears, with Aesopus, the son of the actor. (Hor. Serm. 2.3. 239.) She was divorced by her husband in 45. (Cic. Att. 12.52, 13.7.) Her father is not known.

plebeian; for the name of T. Caecilius in Livy (4.7, comp. 6), the patrician consular tribune in B. C. 444, is a false reading for T. Cloelius. A member of this gens is mentioned in history as early as the fifth century B. C.; but the first of the Caecilii who obtained the consulship was L. Caecilius Metellus Denter, in 284. The family of the Metelli became from this time one of the most distinguished in the state. Like other Roman families in the later times of the republic, they traced their origin to a mythical personage, and pretended that they were descended from Caeculus, the founder of Praeneste [Caeculus], or Caecas, the companion of Aeneas. (Festus, s. v. Caeculus.) The cognomens of this gens under the republic are Bassus, Denter, Mietellus, Niger, Pinna, Rufus, of which the Metelli are the best known: for those whose cognomen is not mentioned, see Caecilius.

, or Tanaquil. See Tanaquil.