Luscus

a cognomen of the Annia, Aufidia, and Furia gentes, derived, like so many of the Roman surnames, from a physical imperfection -- blear-sight. (Plin. Nat. 11.37.55; Fest. s. v. Luscitio, p. 120, ed. Millerr) The Fabricia Gens had a kindred surname, Luscinus. [W.B.D]

1. T. Annius Luscus, son of T. Annius, captured by the Boian Gauls in B. C. 218 [Annius, No. 3], was sent in B. C. 172, with two other envoys to Perseus, king of Macedonia, and in B. C. 169 was triumvir for augmenting the colony at Aquilcia, in the territory of the Veneti. (Liv. 42.25, 43.17.)

2. T. Annius Luscus, T. F., son, probably, of the preceding, was consul in B. C. 153 (see Fasti). Cicero mentions him as a respectable orator (Brut. 20). In B. C. 133, Luscus appears among the opponents of Tib. Gracchus whom he foiled in the comitia by an insidious question. (Plut. TG 14.) A few words from one of his speeches are extant in Festus (s. v. Satura).

3. T. Annius Luscus, T. F. T. N., with the agnomen Rufus, was consul in B. C. 128. He was probably a son of the preceding. (Fasti.)

4. C. Annius Luscus, T. F. T. N., perhaps son of the preceding. He was commander of the garrison at Leptis, under Q. Metellus Numidicus, in the Jugurthine war, B. C. 108. He was afterwards praetor, and in B. C. 81 was sent by Sulla with proconsular authority against Sertorius. Luscus drove the Sertorians through the passes of the Pyrenees into Spain, and at first by his superior forces, both by land and sea, rendered the situation of Sertorius highly precarious. (Eckhel, vol. v. p. 134; Plut. Sert. 7; Sall. B. J. 77.) [W.B.D]

the chief magistrate at Fundi, ridiculed by Horace, on account of the ridiculous and pompous airs he gave himself when Maccenas and his friends passed through Fundi, in their celebrated journey to Brundisium. Horace calls him praetor; but as Fundi was a praefectura, and not a municipium, Luscus must have been sent from Rome simply as praefectus, and assumed the title of praetor to enhance his dignity. (Hor. Sat. 1.5. 34-36.)

plebeian aedile with C. Sempronius Blaesus, B. C. 187, exhibited a second time the plebeii ludi. (Liv. 39.7.)