Licinus

• a surname in the gens Fabia and Porcia.—Also, the name of a barber and freedman of Augustus, celebrated for his wealth, Hor. A. P. 301; Mart. 8, 3, 6; Varr. Atac. in Anth. Lat. T. 1, p. 205. —Plur.: ego possideo plus Pallante et Licinis, Juv. 1, 109.

a surname in several gentes, is frequently written Licinius; but in the Capitolini Fasti and on coins we always find Licinus, which is no doubt the correct form, the name of Licinius being subtituted for it, on account of its much greater celebrity. (Comp. Madvig, Opuscula altera, p. 205.)

1. A Gaul by birth, who was taken prisoner in war, and became a slave of Julius Caesar, whose confidence he gained so much as to be made his dispensator or steward. Caesar gave him his freedom, perhaps in his testament, as he is called by some writers the freedman of Augustus, who, we know, carried into execution the will of his uncle. Licinus gained the favour of Augustus, as well as of Julius Caesar, and was appointed by the former, in B. C. 15, governor of his native country, Gaul. He oppressed and plundered his countrymen so unmercifully, that they accused him before Augustus, who was at first disposed to treat his favourite with severity, but was mollified by Licinus exhibiting to him the immense wealth which he had accumulated in Gaul, and offering him the whole of it. Licinus thus escaped punishment, and seems, moreover, to have been permitted by Augustus to retain his property. His fortune was so great that his name was used proverbially to indicate a man of enormous wealth, and is frequently coupled with that of Crassus. To gratify his imperial master, Licinus, like many of his contemporaries, devoted part of his property to the erection of a public building, the " Basilica Julia," which he called after the name of his former master. He lived to see the reign of Tiberius. (D. C. 54.21; Suet. Aug. 67; Juv. 1.109, with Schol. 14.306; Pers. 2.36, with Schol.; Macr. 2.4; Senec. Ep. 119.10, 120 § 20; Sidon. Ep. 5.7.) There was a splendid marble tomb of Licinus on the Via Salaria, at the second milestone from the city; in reference to which the following pointed epigram is preserved :-- Marmoreo Licinus tumulo jacet, at Cato parvo, Pompeius nullo; quis putet esse deos ?

(Meyer, Anthol. Lat. vol. i. No. 77, with Meyer's note, p. 31). This tomb is also alluded to by Martial (8.3. 6). For an account of this Licinus, see Madvig, Opuscula altera, pp. 202-205.

2. The barber (tonsor) Licinus spoken of by Horace (Ars Poet. 301), must have been a different person from the preceding; and the scholiast has therefore made a mistake in referring to the barber in the epigram quoted above.

a Roman annalist, who lived apparently about the beginning of the first century B. C., as Cicero (de Leg. 1.2.6), speaks of him as a successor of Caelius Antipater. [Antipater, Caelius.] The work of Clodius Licinus, the title of which Plutarch (Plut. Num. 1) gives in Greek, as Ἔλεγχος χρόνων, appears to have extended from the taking of Rome by the Gauls to his own time. Plutarch quotes (l.c.) his authority for the destruction of the public records of the city when it was captured by the Gauls; and we learn from Livy (29.22) that Licinus spoke, in the third book, of the second consulship of Scipio Africanus the elder; and from a fragment of Appian (Celt. 3), that he gave an account of the defeat of L. Cassius Longinus by the Tigurini, B. C. 107. This Clodius is called by Cicero and Plutarch simply Clodius, by Livy Clodius Licinus, and by Appian Παύλῳ τῷ Κλαυδιῳ; instead of the last, which is evidently corrupt, we should perhaps read Publius Clodius, so that his full name would then be P. Clodius Licinus. This Clodius is frequently confounded with Q. Claudius Quadrigarius. [Quadrigarius.] Niebuhr thinks (Hist. of Rome, vol. ii. p. 2) that the passage of Plutarch quoted above refers to Claudius Quadrigarius; but as Plutarch speaks of him as Κλώδιός τις, it seems more probable that he meant to refer to the less celebrated of the two writers. (Krause, Vitae et Fragm. vet. Hist. Rom. p. 213; Perizon. Animad. Hist. p. 349.)

1. L. Porcius Licinus, lived in the second Punic war. He'is first mentioned in B. C. 211, when he served with distinction as legate in the army that was besieging Capua. In the following year (B. C. 210) he was plebeian aedile, and with his colleague, Q. Catius, celebrated the public games with great splendour. He was praetor in B. C. 207, and obtained Cisalpine Gaul as his province. In co-operation with the consuls of the year, C. Claudius Nero and M. Livius Salinator, he had a share ill the glory of the defeat of Hasdrubal, the brother of Hannibal, at the battle of the Metaurus, in Umbria. (Liv. 26.6, 27.6, 35, 36, 39, 46_48.)

2. L. Porcius Licinus, the son of the preceding, was praetor B. C. 193, and received Sardinia as his province. He sued unsuccessfully for the consulship at first, but at length obtained it, in B. C. 184; and in conjunction with his colleague, P. Claudius Pulcher, carried on the war against the Ligurians. (Liv. 34.54, 55, 39.32, 33, 45, 40.34; Cic. Brut. 15.)

3. L. Porcius Licinus, the son of No. 2, dedicated, as duumvir in B. C. 181, the temple to Venus Erycina, which his father had vowed in the Ligurian war. This temple, which was called after the celebrated temple of Venus at Eryx in Sicily, was situated outside the Colline gate, and is mentioned by Livy, by prolepsis, as in existence as early as the year B. C. 202. (Liv. 30.38.) Licinus was appointed in B. C. 172 to conduct to Brundusium from the docks at Rome the fleet which was to convey to Greece the troops destined for the war against Perseus. (Liv. 40.34; Strab. vi. p.272; Ov. Fast. 4.874; App. BC 1.93; Liv. 42.27.)

4. L. Porcius Licinus, occurs only on coins, of which a specimen is given below. The obverse represents the head of Pallas, with L. PORCI LICI.; the reverse the naked figure of Mars driving a chariot and hurling a spear, with the legend L. Lic. CN. DOM. We have coins of the Aurelia and Cosconia gentes exactly the same as the preceding, with the sole exception of the difference of name, those of the former bearing the name of M. Aurelius Scaurus, and those of the latter L. Cosconius. [Cosconius; Scaurus.] Now, as all the three sets of coins have on the obverse L. Lic. CN. DOM., it is supposed that they were struck in the censorship of L. Licinius Crassus and Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus, B. C. 92, and that L. Porcius Licinus . . Aurelius Scaurus, and L. Cosconius, were triumvirs of the Mint in that year. Eckhel (vol. v. p. 196), however, thinks that these coins must have been struck at an earlier time; but on this point see Drumann, Gesch. Roms, vol. v. p. 95.

5. Porcius Licinus, an ancient Roman poet, whom A. Gellius places between Valerius Aedituus and Q. Lutatius Catulus, consul B. C. 104, and who, therefore, probably lived in the latter part of the second century, B. C. Gellius quotes an epigram of Licinus, which seems to be taken from the Greek, and likewise cites the commencement of a poem of his on the history of Roman poetry, written in trochaic tetrameters. He seems to be the same as the Porcius mentioned in the life of Terence, ascribed to Suetonius, but must not be confounded, as he has been by some modern writers, with the consul of this name. [No. 2.] (Gel. 19.9, 17.2; Anthol. Lat. Nos. 25, 26, ed. Meyer; Madvig, de L. Attii Didascalicis, p. 20.)

(1) A Gaul by birth, who was taken prisoner in war, and became a slave of Iulius Caesar, whose confidence he gained so much as to be made his dispensator or steward. Caesar gave him his freedom. He also won the favour of Augustus, who appointed him, in B.C. 15, governor of his native country, Gaul. By the plunder of Gaul and by other means, he acquired enormous wealth, and hence his name is frequently coupled with that of Crassus. He lived to see the reign of Tiberius.

(2) Clodius, a Roman annalist, who lived about the beginning of the first century B.C., wrote the history of Rome from its capture by the Gauls to his own time. This Clodius is frequently confounded with Q. Claudius Quadrigarius (q.v.).