A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology. By various writers. Ed. by William Smith. Illustrated by numerous engravings on wood.

BRUTUS.
and Minerva, who burnt himself that he might not
be taunted with his ugliness. (Ov. Ibis, 517.)
2. One of the fighters at the marriage of Phineus. (Ov. Met. v. 106.)
3. A Lapith, who was slain at the marriage of
Pirithous. (Ov. Met. xii. 260.)
4. The father of Tantalus, who had been married to Clytaemnestra before Agamemnon. The
common account, however, is, that Thyestes was
thie father of this Tantalus. (Paus. ii. 22. ~ 4.)
5. A son of Tantalus, who, according to a tradition of the Magnetes, had made the most ancient
statue of the mother of the gods on the rock of
Coddinos. (Paus. iii. 22. ~ 4.) [L. S.]
BRUNI'CHIUS (BpovviXLos), a chronographer
of uncertain date, referred to by Joannes Maalal
(vol. i. p. 239), the title of whose work was Viceoris
BpouinvvXv 'PoWuc ioV Xpovo'ypdcpov.
BRUSUS (Bpodo-os), a son of Emathius, from
whom Brusis, a portion of Macedonia, was believed
to have derived its name. (Steph. Byz. s. v.
Bpoot9r.) [L. S.]
BRUTI'DIUS NIGER. [NIGER.]
BRU'TIUS (Bpovrnos), an historian and chronographer, is called by the writer of the Alexandrian chronicle (p. 90), who quotes some things
from him respecting DanaG and Perseus, 6 aocq)W"raTros o'7opucos ical ypovoypciapos. He is also
mentioned by Joannes Malala (vol. i. pp. 39, 326,
340) and by Hieronymus in the Chronicle of Eusebius; and Scaliger, in his notes upon this passage (p. 205), has conjectured, that he may be the
same as the Brutius Praesens whose daughter,
Brutia Crispina, married L. Aurelius Commodus,
the son of M. Aurelius: but this is quite uncertain. (Vossius, de list. Graec. p. 409, ed. Westermann.)
BRUTTIA'NUS LUSTRICUS. [LvsTRicus.]
BRU'TTIUS. 1. A IRoman knight, for whom
Cicero wrote a letter of introduction to M'. Acilius
Glabrio, proconsul in Sicily in u. c. 46. (Cic. ad
Tam. xiii. 38.)
2. A philologer, with whom M. Cicero, the son
of the orator, studied at Athens, in B. c. 44. (Cic.
ad Fam. xvi. 21.)
BRU'TTIUS SURA. [SunA.]
BRU'TULUS PA'PIUS, a man of noble rank
and great power among the Samnites, who persuaded his countrymen to undertake a second war
against the Romans; but the Samnites, after their
disasters in B. c. 322, became anxious for a peace,
and resolved to deliver up Brutulus to the Romans.
His corpse, however, was all that they could give
their enemies; for Brutulus put an end to his
own life, to avoid perishing by the hands of the
Romans. (Liv. viii. 39.)
BRUTUS, the name of a plebeian family of the
Junia Gens, which traced its descent from the first
consul, L. Junius Brutus. (Comp. Cic. Pil. i. 6,
Brzt. 4.) It was denied by many of the ancients that
this family could be descended from the first consul,
first, because the latter was a patrician, and secondly,
because his race became extinct at his death, as he
had only two sons, who were executed by his own
orders. (Dionys. v. 18, comp. vi. 70; Dion. Cass.
xliv. 12; Plut. Brut. 1.) Posidonius, indeed, asserted that there was a third son, who was a child
when his brothers were put to death, and that the
plebeian family was descended from him; and he
even pretended to discover a likeness in many of
the Bruti to the statue of the first consul. (Plut.

BRUTUS. 507
L. c.) But this tale about a third son is such an
evident invention, to answer an objection that had
been started by those who espoused the other side
of the question, that it deserves no credence; and
nothing was more natural than that the family
should claim descent from such an illustrious ancestor, especially after the murder of Caesar, when
M. Brutus was represented as the liberator of his
country from tyranny, like his name-sake of old.
It is, however, by no means impossible, that the
family may have been descended from the first consul, even if we take for granted that he was a patrician, as we know that patricians sometimes
passed over to the plebeians: while this descent
becomes still more probable, if we accept Niebuhr's
conjecture (Rom. Hist. i. p. 522, &c.), that the first
consul was a plebeian, and that the consulship was,
at its first institution, shared between the two orders.
The surname of Brutus is said to have been
given to L. Junius, because he pretended idiocy in
order to save himself from the last Tarquin, and
the word is accordingly supposed to signify an
"idiot." (Liv. i. 56; Dionys. iv. 67, who translates it jXLOitos; Nonius, p. 77.) Festus, however, in a passage (s. v. Brutum) which is pointed
out by Arnold (Rom. Hist. i. p. 104), tells us, that
Brutus, in old Latin, was synonymous with Gravis; which, as Arnold remarks, would show a
connexion with Sapus. The word may, therefore, as a surname, have been originally much the
same as Severus. This conjecture we think more
probable than that of Niebuhr's, who supposes it
to mean a " runaway slave," and connects it with
the Brettii, "revolted slaves," whence the Brutii
are supposed to have derived their name (Strab.
vi. p. 225; Diod. xvi. 15; Gell. x. 3): he further
observes, that this name might easily have been
applied by the Tarquins to Brutus as a term of
reproach. (Rom. Hist. i. pp. 63, 98, 515.)
1. L. JvUNus BRUTUS, was elected consul in
B. c. 509, according to the chronology of the Fasti,
upon the expulsion of the Tarquins from Rome.
His story, the greater part of which belongs to
poetry, ran as follows: The sister of king Tarquin
the Proud, married M. Brutus, a man of great
wealth, who died leaving two sons under age. Of
these the elder was killed by Tarquin, who coveted their possessions; the younger escaped his brother's fate only by feigning idiocy, whence he received the surname of Brutus. After a while,
Tarquin became alarmed by the prodigy of a serpent
crawling from the altar in the royal palace, and
accordingly sent his two sons, Titus and Aruns, to
consult the oracle at Delphi. They took with
them their cousin Brutus, who propitiated the
priestess with the gift of a golden stick enclosed in
a hollow staff. After executing the king's commission, the youths asked the priestess who was to
reign at Rome after Tarquin, and the reply was,
" He who first kisses his mother." Thereupon the
sons of Tarquin agreed to draw lots, which of
them should first kiss their mother upon arriving
at Rome; but Brutus, who better understood the
meaning of the oracle, stumbled upon the ground
as they quitted the temple, and kissed the earth,
mother of them all. Soon after followed the rape
of Lucretia; and Brutus accompanied the unfortunate father to Rome, when his daughter sent
for him to the camp at Ardea. Brutus was present at her death, and the moment had now come