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

SULPICIUS. SULPICIUS. 94 5
towards the close of the first century, celebrated respect. He calls him, on one occasion "vir
for sundry gay amatory effusions, addressed to her praestanti literarum scientia," and on another,
husband Calenus. Their general character may be " homo memoriae nostrae doctissimus." (Gell. ii.
gathered from the expressions of Martial, Ausonius, 16, iv. 17, xiii. 17, xv. 5.)' There are two poems
and Sidonius Apollinaris, by all of whom they are in the Latin Anthology, purporting to be written
noticed. Two lines from one of these productions by Sulpicius of Carthage, whom some writers
have been preserved by the scholiast upon Juvenal, identify with the above-named Sulpicius ApolliSet. vi. 536. (Martial. Ep. x. 35-38; Auson. Epi- naris. One of these poems consists of seventy-two
log. Cent. Nupt.; Sidon. Apollin. Carm. ix. 260; lines, giving the argument of the twelve books of
Anthol. Lat. iii. 251, ed. Burmann, or No. 198, Virgil's Aeneid, six lines being devoted to each
ed. Meyer.) book (Anthol. Lat. Nos. 222, 223, ed. Meyer;
We find in the collected works of Ausonius, as Donatus, Vita Virqilii). The contemporary of
first published by Ugoletus (4to. Parm. 1499, Gellius is probably the same person as the Sulpicius
Venet. 1501), a satirical poem, in seventy hexa- Apollinaris who taught the emperor Pertinax in his
meters, on the edict of Domitian, by which philoso- youth. (Capitol. Pertin. 1.)
phers were banished from Rome and from Italy SULPI'CIUS ASPER. [AsrPER.]
(Suet. Dom. 10; Gell. xv. 11). It has been fre- SULPI'CIUS FLAVUS. [FLAVUS.]
quently reprinted, and generally bears the title SULPI'CIUS LUPERCUS SERVASTUS, a
Sdtyricon Carmen s. Ecloga de edicto Domitiani, or Latin poet, of whom two poems are extant; an
Satyra de corrupto reipublicae statu temporibus Do- elegy, De Cupiditate, in forty-two lines, and a
m2itiani. When closely examined it soon appeared sapphic ode, De Vetustate, in twelve lines. Both
manifest that it could not belong to the rhetorician poems are printed in Wernsdorf's Poetae Latini
of Bordeaux, but that it must have been written Minores, vol. iii. pp. 235, &c. 408. Nothing is
by some one who lived at the period to which the known of the author.
theme refers, that the author was a female (v. 8), SULPI'CIUS RUFUS. 1. SER. SULPICIUS
and that she had previously composed a multitude RuFus, was consular tribune three times, namely
of sportive pieces in a great variety of measures. in B. c. 388, 384, and 383. (Liv. vi. 4, 18, 21.)
Hence many critics, struck by these coincidences, 2. P. SuIPIcIvs RUFUS, tribune of the plebs,
have not hesitated to ascribe the lines in question B. c. 88. He was born in B. c. 124, as he was ten
to the Sulpicia mentioned above, the contemporary years older than Hortensius. (Cic. Brut. 88.) He
of Martial, and in almost all the more recent col- was one of the most distinguished orators of his
lections of the minor Latin poets they bear her time. Cicero, who had heard him, frequently
name. In a literary point of view they possess speaks of him in terms of the highest admiration.
little interest, being weak, pointless, and destitute He says that Sulpicius and Cotta were, beyond
of spirit. (Wernsdorf, Poet. Lat. _imn. vol. iii. comparison, the greatest orators of their age.
p. ix. and p. 83.) The satire is generally appended " Sulpicius," he states, " was, of all the orators I
to editions of Juvenal and Persius. [W. R.] ever heard, the most dignified, and, so to speak,
SULPI'CIA GENS, originally patrician, and the most tragic. His voice was powerful, and at
afterwards plebeian likewise. It was one of the the same time sweet and clear; the gestures and
most ancient Roman gentes, and produced a suc- movements of his body were graceful; but he apcession of distinguished men, from the foundation peared, nevertheless, to have been trained for the
of the republic to the imperial period. The first forum and not for the stage; his language was
member of it who obtained the consulship was Ser. rapid and flowing, and yet not redundant or
Sulpicits Camerinus Cornutus, in B. C. 500, only nine diffuse." (Brut. 55.) He commenced public life as
years after the expulsion of the Tarquins, and the a supporter of the aristocratical party, and soon
last of the name who appears on the consular Fasti acquired great influence in the state by his splendid
was Sex. Sulpicius Tertullus in A. D. 158. The talents, while he was still young. He was an infamily names of the Sulpicii during the republican timate friend of M. Livius Drusus, the celebrated
period are - CAMERINUS CORNUTUS, GALBA, tribune of the plebs, and the aristocracy placed
GALLUS, LONGUS, PATERCULUS, PETICUS, PRAE- great hopes in him. (Cic. de Orctt. i. 7.) In B. c.
TEXTATUS, QUIRINUS, RUFUS (given below), 94, he accused of majestas C. Norbanus, the turSAVERRio. Besides these cognomens, we meet bulent tribune of the plebs, who was defended by
with some other surnames belonging to freedmen M. Antonius and was acquitted. [NORBANUS,
and to other persons under the empire, which are No. 1.] In B. c. 93 he was quaestor, and in B. C.
given below. On coins we find the surnames Galba, 89 he served as legate of the consul Cn. Pompeius
Platorinus, Proclus, Rufus. Strabo in the Marsic war. In the following year,
SULPICIA'NUS, FLA'VIUS, the father-in- B. c. 88, lie was elected to the tribunate through
law of the emperor Pertinax, was appointed upon the influence of the aristocratical party. The
the death of Commodus praefectus urbi. After consuls of the year were L. Cornelius Sulla and
the murder of his son he became one of the candi- Q. Pompeius Rufus, the latter of whom was a
dates for the vacant throne, when it was exposed personal friend of Sulpicius. (Cic. Lael. 1.) At
for sale by the praetorians. He was outbid by first Sulpicius did not disappoint the expectations
Didius Julianus, who stripped him of his office but of his party. In conjunction with his colleague,
spared his life at the request of the soldiers. I-Ie P. Antistius, he resisted the attempt of C. Julius
was subsequently put to death by Septimius Se- Caesar to become a candidate for the consulship
verus, on the charge of having favoured the pre- before he had filled the office of praetor, and he also
tensions of Clodius Albinus. (Dion Cass. lxxiii. opposed the return from exile of those who had
7, 11, lxxv. 8.) [W. R.] been banished. (Cic. Brut. 63, de Hartsjp. Resp.
SULPI'CIUS APOLLINA/RIS, a contempo- 20; Ascon. in Scauer. p. 20, ed. Orelli; Cic. ad
rary of A. Gellius, was a learned grammarian, flerenn. ii. 28.) But Sulpicius shortly afterwards
whom Gellius frequently cites with the greatest joined Marius, and placed himself at the head of
VOL. Ill. 3 P /