Cinna

Cinna, ae, m., a family name of the gentes Cornelia and Helvia.

• I L. Cornelius Cinna, consul A.U.C. 667-670; a confederate of C. Marius in the Roman civil war with Sylla, Vell. 2, 20 sq.; Flor. 3, 21; Cic. Tusc. 5, 19, 54 and 55.—Hence, appel., a Cinna, a cruel warrior: tyrannum et Cinnam appellans, Sall. H. 1, 42 Dietsch.— Hence, Cinnānus, a, um, adj., of Cinna: partes, his party, adherents, Vell. 2, 24; Nep. Att. 2, 2: rabies, Flor. 4, 2, 2: tumultus, Nep. Att. 2, 2.—
• II Son of the preceding of the same name, a follower of Lepidus, and afterwards one of the assassins of Caesar, Suet. Caes. 5; 85; Val. Max. 9, 9, 1; cf. Cic. Phil. 3, 10, 26.—
• III Cn. Cinna Magnus, son of the preceding, pardoned by Augustus, Sen. Clem. 1, 9, 1.—
• IV C. Helvius Cinna, a Roman poet, friend of Catullus, the author of a poem, now lost, called Smyrna, Ov. Tr. 2, 435; Cat. 10, 30; 10, 95; 10, 96; Verg. E. 9, 35; Mart. 10, 21, 4; Plin. Ep. 5, 3, 5; Quint. 10, 4, 4 al.

Cinna, ae, m., röm. Familienname der Cornelii u. Helvii, unter dem bes. bekannt sind: I) L. Cornelius Cinna, der Genosse des C. Marius im Bürgerkriege gegen Sulla, Cic. Tusc. 5, 54 sq. Vell. 2, 20 sq.: berüchtigt durch seine Grausamkeit gegen die Gegenpartei, dah. appell. ein Cinna = ein grausamer Gegner, tyrannum et Cinnam appellans, Sall. hist. fr. 1, 42 (hist. fr. inc. 52). – Dav. Cinnānus, a, um, cinnanisch, partes, der Anhänger (die Partei) des Cinna, Nep. u. Vell.: tumultus, Nep.: cruor, die blutigen Zeiten Cinnas, Cic. – II) dessen Sohn L. Corn. Cinna, Anhänger des Lepidus u. später einer der Mörder Cäsars, Suet. Caes. 5 u. 85. Val. Max. 9, 9, 1; vgl. Cic. Phil. 3, 26. – u. III) dessen Sohn (von der Pompeja, des Pompejus Tochter) L. od. Cn. Cinna Magnus, von Augustus zweimal begnadigt, Sen. de clem. 1, 9, 1. – IV) C. Helvius Cinna, ein röm. Dichter, Freund des Katull, Catull. 10, 30. Verg. ecl. 1, 35. Plin. ep. 5, 3, 5.

1 Cinna, (11) æ, m. , ¶ 1 L. Cornelius Cinna [consul avec Marius] : Cic. Tusc. 5, 54 ¶ 2 conspirateur gracié par Auguste : Sen. Clem. 1, 9, 1 ¶ 3 Helvius Cinna [poète, ami de Catulle] : Catul. 10, 31.

2 Cinna, æ, f. , ville de la Dalmatie : Anton.

Cinna

an early Roman jurist, mentioned by Pomponius (Dig. 1. tit. 2. s. 2.44), among the disciples of Servius Sulpicius. [T. Caesius.] He is cited by Ulpian (Dig. 23. tit. 2. s. 6), and by Javolenus. (Dig. 35, tit. 1. s. 40.40.) There are no data to identify him with any of the various historical Cinnas of his age. He was later than the celebrated L. Cornelius Cinna, who was consul in B. C. 87-84; but may have been his son. [Cinna, No. 3.] The grandson, Cn. Corn. Cinna Magnus, consul in A. D. 5, is of rather too late a date, and, moreover, is termed by Seneca (de Clem. 1.9), a stupid man, "quod nostro jurisconsulto minime convenit," says Maiansius, who seems disposed to identify the jurist with the poet C. Helvius Cinna, the author of Smyrna. (Maiansius, ad XXX. J Ctos. ii. p. 143.) [J.T.G]

Cinna , Ca'tulus

a Stoic philosopher, a teacher of M. Aurelius. (Capitol. Anton. Phil. 3; Antonin. 1.13.)

Cinna , Corne'lius

Cinna was the name of a patrician family of the Cornelia gens.

Cinna , Corne'lius

1. L. Cornelius Cinna, L. F., consul in B. C. 127. (Fast. Sic.)

Cinna , Corne'lius

2. L. Cornelius Cinna, L. F. L. N., son of No. 1, the famous leader of the popular party, during the absence of Sulla in the East. (B. C. 87-84.) He was praetorian legate in the Marsic war. (Cic. Font. 15.) In B. C. 87, when Sulla was about to take the command against Mithridates, he allowed Cinna to be elected consul with Cn. Octavius, on condition of his taking an oath not to alter the constitution as then existing. (Plut. Sull. 10; Dio Cass. Frag. 117.) Yet Cinna's first act as consul was to impeach Sulla (Cic. in Cat. 3.10, Brut. 47, Tusc. Disp. 5.19); and as soon as the general had left Italy, he began his endeavour to overpower the senate, by forming a strong popular party out of the new citizens, chiefly of the Italian states, who had lately been enrolled in the 35 old tribes, whereas they had before voted separately as eight tribes (Appian, App. BC 1.55, 56; Cic. Philpp. 8.2; Veil. Pat. 2.20); and by their aid it was proposed to recall Marius and his party. The other consul, Octavius, was ill fitted to oppose the energy of the popular leaders (Plut. Mar. 41, 42, Sertor. 4); yet Sulla had left the party of the senate so strong, that on the day of voting, Octavius was able to defeat his opponents in the forum, and Cinna fled the city. He was soon joined by Sertorius and others, who assisted in raising the Italians against the party now in power at Rome; for which the senate, by unconstitutionally deposing him from the consulate, had given him a very specious pretext. Cinna and his friends then marched upon Rome and invested it from the land, while Marius, having landed from Africa, blockaded it on the sea-side; and to his life more properly belong the siege and capture of the city, with the massacre of Sulla's friends. [Marius.]

Next year (B. C. 86) Cinna and Marius made themselves consuls; but Marius dying in January, was succeeded by L. Valerius Flaccus. Him Cinna got rid of by appointing him to the command against Mithridates, hoping therebyalso to provide Sulla with a new enemy. But Flaccus was killed by his legatus C. Flavius Fimbria. (Vell. 2.23; Appian, App. BC 1.75.) In B. C. 85, Cinna entered on his third consulate with Cn. Papirius Carbo, an able man, who had already been of great use to the party. Sulla now threatened to return and take vengeance on his enemies; and the next year (B. C. 84), Cinna and Carbo being again consuls, he fulfilled his threat. Cinna had assembled an army at Brundisium, and sent part of it across to Liburnia, intending to meet Sulla before he set foot in Italy; but when he ordered the rest to follow, a mutiny arose, and in the effort to quell it he was slain. [For the sequel see Sulla.]

Cinna was a bold and active man, but his boldness was akin to rashness, and his activity little directed by judgment. Single-handed he could do nothing; he leant for support first on Sertorius, then on Marius, then on Carbo; and fell at last from wanting the first quality of a general, ability to command the confidence of his troops. Velleius's character of him is more antithetical than true. (2.24.)

Cinna , Corne'lius

3. L. Cornelius Cinna, L. F. L. N., son of No. 2. When very young he joined M. Lepidus in overthrowing the constitution of Sulla (B. C. 78); and on the defeat and death of Lepidus in Sardinia, he went with M. Perperna to join Sertorius in Spain. (Suet. Jul. 5; Plut. Sert. 15.) Caesar, his brother-in-law, wishing to make use of him against the party of the senate, procured his recall from exile. But his father had been proscribed by Sulla, and young Cinna was by the laws of proscription unable to hold office, till Caesar, when dictator, had them repealed. He was not elected praetor till B. C. 44. By that time he had become discontented with Caesar's government; and though he would not join the conspirators, he approved of their act. And so great was the rage of the mob against him, that notwithstanding he was praetor, they nearly murdered him; nay, they did murder Helvius Cinna, tribune of the plebs, whom they mistook for the praetor, though he was at the time walking in Caesar's funeral procession. (Plut. Brut. 18, Caes. 68; Suet. Jul. 52, 85, &c.; V. Max. 9.9.1.) Cicero praises him for not taking any province (Philipp. 3.10); but it may be doubted whether the conspirators gave him the choice, for the praetor does not seem to have been a very disinterested person. He married a daughter of Pompeius Magnus.

Cinna , Corne'lius

4. Cinna, probably brother of the last, served as quaestor under Dolabella against Brutus. (Plut. Brut. 25; Cic. Philipp. 10.6.)

Cinna , Corne'lius

5. Cn. Cornelius Cinna Magnus, son of No. 3, and therefore grandson of Pompey, whence he received the surname of Magnus. Though he sided with Antony against Octavius, he was preferred to a priesthood by the conqueror, and became consul in A. D. 5. (Senec. de Clem. 1.9; D. C. 55.14. 22.) [H.G.L]

The name of Cinna occurs, in the form of Cina, on asses, semisses, and trientes. A specimen of one is given below: the obverse represents the head of Janus, the reverse the prow of a ship.

Cinna , C. He'lvius

a poet of considerable renown, was the contemporary, companion, and friend of Catullus. (Catull. x., xcv., cxiii.) The year of his birth is totally unknown, but the day of his death is generally supposed to be a matter of common notoriety; for Suetonius (Suet. Jul. 85) informs us, that immediately after the funeral of Julius Caesar the rabble rushed with fire-brands to the houses of Brutus and Cassius, but having been with difficulty driven back, chanced to encounter Helvius Cinna, and mistaking him, from the resemblance of name, for Cornelius Cinna, who but the day before had delivered a violent harangue against the late dictator, they killed him on the spot, and bore about his head stuck on a spear. The same story is repeated almost in the same words by Valerius Maximus (9.9.1), by Appian (App. BC 2.147), and by Dio Cassius (44.50), with this addition, that they all three call Helvius Cinna a tribune of the plebeians, and Suetonius himself in a previous chapter (50) had spoken of Helvius Cinna as a tribune, who was to have brought forward a law authorizing Caesar to marry whom he pleased and as many as he pleased, in order to make sure of an heir. Plutarch likewise (Caes. 68) tells us that Cinna, a friend of Caesar, was torn to pieces under the supposition that he was Cinna, one of the conspirators. None of the above authorities take any notice of Cinna being a poet; but Plutarch, as if to supply the omission, when relating the circumstances over again in the life of Brutus (100.20), expressly describes the victim of this unhappy blunder as ποιητικὸς ἀνήρ (ἦν δέ τις Κίννας, ροιητικὸς ἀνήρ--the reading πολιτικὸς ἀνήρ being a conjectural emendation of Xylander). The chain of evidence thus appearing complete, scholars have, with few exceptions, concluded that Helvius Cinna, the tribune, who perished thus, was the same with Helvius Cinna the poet; and the story of his dream, as narrated by Plutarch (Caes. 1. c.) has been embodied by Shakspeare in his Julius Caesar.

Wleichert, however, following in the track of Reiske and J. H. Voss, refuses to admit the identity of these personages, on the ground that chronological difficulties render the position untenable. He builds almost entirely upon two lines in Virgil's ninth eclogue, which is commonly assigned to B. C. 40 or 41.

Nam neque adhuc Vario videor, nec dicere Cinna Digna, sed argutos inter strepere anser alores,

arguing that, since Varius was alive at this epoch, Cinna must have been alive also; that the Cinna here celebrated can be no other than Helvius Cinna; and that inasmuch as Helvius Cinna was alive in B. C. 40, he could not have been murdered in B. C. 44. But, although the conclusion is undeniable if we admit the premises, it will be at once seen that these form a chain, each separate link of which is a pure hypothesis. Allowing that the date of the pastoral has been correctly fixed, although this cannot be proved, we must bear in mind--1. That Varo and not Vario is the reading in every MS. 2. That even if Vario be adopted, the expression in the above verses might have been used with perfect propriety in reference to any bard who had been a contemporary of Virgil, although recently dead. 3. That we have no right to assert dogmatically that the Cinna of Virgil must be C. Helvius Cinna, the friend of Catullus. Hence, although we may grant that it is not absolutely certain that Helvius Cinna the tribune and Helvius Cinna the poet were one and the same, at all events this opinion rests upon much stronger evidence than the other.

The great work of C. Helvius Cinna was his Smyrna; but neither Catullus, by whom it is highly extolled (xcv.), nor any other ancient writer gives us a hint with regard to the subject, and hence the various speculations in which critics have indulged rest upon no basis whatsoever. Some believe that it contained a history of the adventures of Smyrna the Amazon, to whom the famous city of Ionia ascribed its origin; others that it was connected with the myth of Adonis and with the legend of Myrrha, otherwise named Smyrna, the incestuous daughter of Cinyras; at all events, it certainly was not a drama, as a commentator upon Quintilian has dreamed; for the fragments, short and unsatisfactory as they are, suffice to demonstrate that it belonged to the epic style. These consist of two disjointed hexameters preserved by Priscian (6.16.84, ed. Krehl) and the Scholiast on Juvenal (6.155), and two consecutive lines given by Servius (ad Virg. Georg. 1.288), which are not without merit in so far as melodious versification is concerned.

Te matutinus flentem conspexit Eous Et flentem paulo vidit post Hesperus idem.

The circumstance that nine years were spent in the elaboration of this piece has been frequently dwelt upon, may have suggested the well-known precept of Horace, and unquestionably secured the suffrage of the grammarians. (Catull. xcv.; Quint. Inst. 10.4.4; Serv. and Philargyr. ad Virg. Ecl. 9.35; Hor. A. P. 387, and the comments of Acro, Porphyr., and the Schol. Cruq.; Martial, Epigr. 10.21; Gel. 19.9, 13; Sueton. de Illustr. Gramm. 18.)

Besides the Smyrna, he was the author of a work entitled Propempticon Pollionis, which Voss imagines to have been dedicated to Asinius Pollio when setting forth in B. C. 40 on an expedition against the Parthini of Dalmatia, from which he returned in triumph the following year, and founded the first public library ever opened at Rome from the profits of the spoils. This rests of course upon the assumption that Cinna was not killed in B. C. 44, and until that fact is decided, it is vain to reason upon the subject, for the fragments, which extend to six hexameter lines, of which four are consecutive, throw no light on the question. (Charis. Instit. Gramm. p. 99, ed. Putsch; Isidor. Orig. 19.2, 4.)

Lastly, in Isidorus (6.12) we find four elegiac verses, while one hexameter in Suetonius (de Illustr. Gramm, 11), one hexameter and two hendecasyllabics in Gellius (9.12, 19.13), and two scraps in Nonius Marcellus (s. vv. Clypeat. cummi), are quoted from the "Poemata" and "Epigrammata" of Cinna, The class to which some of these fugitive essays belonged may be inferred from the words of Ovid in his apology for the Ars Amatoria. (Trist. 2.435.) (Weichert, Poetar. Latin. Reliqu.) [W.R]

Cinna

(1) L. Cornelius. An adherent of Marius, who played a conspicuous part in the civil war between that leader and Sulla. Having attained to the consulship, after the proscription of Marius by his opponent, he began to exert himself for the recall of the former, and accused Sulla , who was just going as proconsul to Asia, of maladministration. That commander, however, took no notice of the complaint. After the departure of Sulla , he brought forward once more the law of Sulpicius, which admitted the Italians into all the thirty-five tribes without distinction. A savage riot ensued, numbers were slain, and Cinna , with his chief partisans, was driven from the city by his colleague Octavius. The Italian towns, regarding the cause of Cinna as their own, received him with the utmost cordiality. He collected thirty legions, called the proscribed to his support, and, with Marius, Sertorius, and Carbo , marched upon and took possession of Rome. A scene of bloodshed and lawless rapine now ensued, which has perhaps no parallel in ancient or modern times, and has deservedly procured for those who were the actors in it the unmitigated abhorrence of posterity. Cinna and Marius, by their own authority, now declared themselves consuls for the ensuing year; but Marius dying, after having held that office for only seventeen days, Cinna remained in effect the absolute master of Rome. During the space of three years after this victory of his, he continued to hold possession of the government at home, a period during which, as Cicero remarks, the Republic was without laws and without dignity. At length, however, Sulla , after terminating the war with Mithridates, prepared to march home with his army and punish his opponents. Cinna , with his colleague Carbo , resolved thereupon to cross the Adriatic, and anticipate Sulla by attacking him in Greece; but a mutiny of their troops ensued, in which Cinna was slain, B.C. 77. Haughty, violent, always eager for vengeance, addicted to debauchery, precipitate in his plans, but always displaying courage in their execution, Cinna attained to a power little less absolute than that afterwards held by Sulla or Caesar; and it is somewhat remarkable that he should be so little known that scarcely a single personal anecdote of him is to be found on record.

(2) One of the conspirators against Caesar ( Plut. Caes.).

(3) HelviusGaius . A Roman poet, intimate with Caesar, and tribune of the people at the time when the latter was assassinated. According to Plutarch, he went to attend the obsequies of Caesar, but being mistaken by the populace for Cinna the conspirator, was torn to pieces by them. Helvius composed a poem entitled Smyrna (or Zmyrna), on which he was employed nine or ten years. Four fragments of it have reached us. It appears to have been characterized by considerable obscurity of meaning until the grammarian Crassicius wrote an able commentary upon it (Suet. Gram. 18). Some other fragments have also reached us of other productions of this poet. They may be found in L. Müller's edition of Catullus (1870).