Fonteius

Fontēĭus, a,

• the name of a Roman gens. So M. Fonteius, a praetor in Gaul, in defence of whom Cicero delivered the oration still preserved in part, Cic. Att. 1, 6, 1. His sister Fonteia, a vestal, Cic. Font. 17, 37.—Fontēĭānus, a, um, adj., of or belonging to Fonteius, Cic. Harusp. 27, 57.

Fontēius, a, um, Name einer röm. gens, aus der am bekanntesten: M. Fonteius, für den Cicero die noch erhaltene Verteidigungsrede hielt (69 v. Chr.), Cic. ad Att. 1, 6, 1 u. Cic. pro Font. 1 sqq.; u. dessen Schwester Fonteia, eine Vestalin, Cic. Font. 36. – Andere Fonteii zur Kaiserzt. s. Heinrich Iuven. 13, 17. – Adi. fontejisch, Cic. de domo 116. – Dav. Fontēiānus, a, um, fontejanisch, des Fontejus, Cic. de har. resp. 57. Corp. inscr. Lat. 6, 29782.

Fontĕius, (10) ī, m. , nom dʼune famille romaine : not^t M. Fontéius [gouverneur de la Gaule Transpadane, défendu par Cicéron] : Cic. Att. 1, 6, 1 || -ānus, a, um, de Fontéius : Cic. Har. 57.

Fonteius

1. T. Fonteius, legatus of P. Cornelius Scipio, in Spain, B. C. 212. (Liv. 25.32.) After the defeat and death of P. and Cn. Scipio, Fonteius, as prefect of the camp, would have succeeded to the temporary command at least of the legions. But the soldiers, deeming him unqual to conduct a defeated army in the midst of a hostile country, chose instead an inferior officer, L. Marcius, for their leader. (Liv. 25.34, 38.) Fonteius, however, seems to have been second in command (26.17); and if he were the same with T. Fonteius mentioned by Frontinus (Stratag. 1.5.12, 4.5.8), he was a brave, if not an able, officer.

Fonteius

2. P. Fonteius Balbus, praetor in Spain, B. C. 169. (Liv. 44.17.)

Fonteius

3. M. Fonteius, praetor of Sardinia, B. C. 167. (Liv. 45.44.)

Fonteius

4. C. Fonteius, legatus of the praetor Cn. Servilius Caepio, with whom he was slain in a popular tumult at Asculum in Picenum, on the breaking out of the Marsic or Social War, B. C. 90. (Cic. Font. 14; Liv. Epit. 72; Vell. 2.15; Appian, App. BC 1.38; Oros. 5.18.) He was the father of Fonteia (Cic. Font. 17), and of No. 5.

Fonteius

5. M. Fonteius, son of the preceding. The praenomens of both these Fonteii are very doubtful. (Orelli, Onom. Tull. s. v. Fonteius.) Cicero enumerates the offices borne by M. or M'. Fonteius in the following order. He was a triumvir, but whether for apportioning land, conducting a colony, or of the public treasury, is unknown. He was quaestor between B. C. 86-83. In B. C. 83 he was legatus, with the title of Pro-quaestor in Further Spain, and afterwards legatus in Macedonia, when he repressed the incursions of the Thracian tribes into the Roman province. The date of his praetorship is uncertain, but he governed, as his praetorian province, Narbonnese Gaul, between B. C. 76-73, since he remained three years in his government, and in 75 sent provisions, military stores, and recruits to Metellus Pius and Cn. Pompey, who were then occupied with the Sertorian war in Spain. His exactions for this purpose formed one of the charges brought against him by the provincials. He returned to Rome in B. C. 73-2, but he was not prosecuted for extortion and misgovernment until B. C. 69. M. Plaetorius was the conductor, M. Fabius subscriptor of the prosecution. With few exceptions, the principal inhabitants of Narbonne appeared at Rome as witnesses against Fonteius, but the most distinguished among them was Induciomarus, a chief of the Allobroges. The trial was in many respects important; but our knowledge of the cause, as well as of the history of M. Fonteius himself, is limited to the partial and fragmentary speech of his advocate, Cicero. The prosecution was an experiment of the new law--Lex Aurelia de Judiciis--which had been passed at the close of B. C. 70, and which took away the judicia from the senate alone, and enacted that the judices be chosen equally from the senators, the equites, and the tribuni aerarii. It was also the year of Cicero's aedileship, and the prosecutor of Verres now came forward to defend a humbler but a similar criminal. Fonteius procured from every province which he had governed witnesses to his official character -- from Spain and Macedonia, from Narbo Martius and Marseille, from the camp of Pompey, and from the companies of revenue-farmers and merchants whom he had protected or connived at during his administration. He was charged, as far as we can infer from Cicero's speech (Pro Fonteio), with defrauding his creditors while quaestor; with imposing an exorbitant tax on the wines of Narbonne; and with selling exemptions from the repair of the roads of the province, so that both were the roads impassable, and those who could not afford to buy exemptions were burdened with the duty of the exempted. Cicero denies the charge of fraud, but of the complaints respecting the wine-tax and the roads, he says that they were grave, if true; and that they were true, and that Fonteius was really guilty, are probable from the vague declamation in which his advocate indulges throughout his defence. Whether Fonteius were acquitted is not known; but, as he would have been fined or exiled if pronounced guilty, and as we read of his purchasing, after his trial, a sumptuous house--the domus Rabiriana (Cic. Att. 1.6.), at Naples, B. C. 68, it is more probable that the sentence of the judices was favorable. (Cic. pro Font.; Julius Victor, in Font. Fragm.; Drumann, Gesch. Rom vol. v. pp. 329-334, by whom an analysis of Cicero's speech is given. The fragments we possess belong to the second speech for the defence. Each party spoke twice, land Cicero each time in reply. (Cic. Font. 13.) Quintilian (6.3 § 51) cites pro Font. 3.7, as an example of enigmatic allusion.)

Fonteius

6. P. Fonteius, a youth of obscure family, whom P. Clodius Pulcher [Claudius, No. 40.] chose for his adopted father, when, in order to qualify himself for the tribunate of the plebs, he passed at the end of B. C. 60, from the patrician house of the Claudii to the plebeian Fonteii. The whole proceeding was illegal and absurd. Fonteius was married and had three children, therefore there was no plea for adoption; he was scarcely twenty years old, while Clodius was thirty-five ; the rogation was hurried through, and the auspices were slighted. After the ceremony was completed, the first paternal act of Fonteius was to emancipate his adopted son. (Cic. pro Dom. 13, Harusp. Respons. 27.)

Fonteius Magnus

a pleader of causes, and probably a native of Bithynia, who was one of the accusers of Rufus Varenus for extortion while proconsul of Bithynia. Pliny the younger defended Varenus, and Fonteius spoke in reply to him. (Plin. Ep. 5.20, 7.6.) [W.B.D]

Fontēius

Capĭto. See Capito.

Fonteius

Marcus. Propraetor in Narbonese Gaul, between B.C. 76 and 73, accused in 69 of extortion in his province, and defended by Cicero in an oration, part of which is extant.