of the emperor Decius and Herennia Etruscilla was styled Herennius Etruscus Messius Decius. There was both assumption and deposition of names in this system. Thus Minius Cerrinius dropped the former of his appellations when he took that of Herennius. (Comp. Göttling, Staatsverfassung der Röm. p. 5, &c.) [W. B. D.]
COIN OF HERENNIA GENS.
The preceding coin, which represents on the obverse a female head, with the legend PIETAS, and on the reverse a son carrying his father in his arms, has reference to the celebrated act of filial affection of two brothers of Catana, who carried off their aged parents in the midst of an eruption of Mount Aetna. (Comp. Claudian, Idyll. 7 ; Eckhel, vol. i. p. 203, vol. v. p. 224.)
HERE'NNIUS. 1. C. Herennius, was, according to some annalists, one of three commissioners for assigning lands to the Latin colony at Placentia, in b. c. 218. An insurrection of the Boian Gauls compelled Herennius and his colleagues to take refuge in Mutina. (Liv. xxi. 25.) According to Polybius (iii. 40), the commissioners fell into the hands of the insurgents.
2. Herennius Bassus, was one of the principal citizens of Nola in Campania. The ruling order in Nola was Sabellian (Liv. ix. 28 ; Strab. v. p. 249) ; but from its zealous emulation of Cumae and Neapolis, Nola was almost a Greek city (Dionys. XV. 5. fragm. Mai), and thence may have proceeded its staunch preference of a Roman to a Carthaginian alliance: for Herennius was the spokesman of his fellow-citizens when, in b. c. 215, they rejected Hanno's proposals to revolt to Hannibal. (Liv. xxiii. 43.)
3. Herennius Cerrinius, was the son of Paculla Minia, a Campanian woman, who lived at Rome. Paculla was the arch-priestess, and Herennius one of the chief hierophants of the Bacchanalia in that city, b. c. 186. (Liv, xxxix. 13, 19.) It is probable that the son of Paculla became an Herennius by marriage with Herennia, according to the Sabellian practice of annexing the wife's name to the paternal or family appellation. (See Herennia Gens and Göttling, Staatsverfassung der Röm. p. 5.)
4. M. Octavius Herennius, was originally a flute-player, but afterwards engaged in trade, and throve so well that he dedicated to Hercules a tenth of his gains. Once, while sailing with his wares, Herennius was attacked by pirates, but he beat them off valiantly, and saved his liberty and cargo. Then Hercules showed Herennius in a dream that it was he who had given him strength in his need. So, when he came back to Rome, Herennius besought the senate for a piece of ground, whereon he built a chapel to Hercules, and placed in it an image of the god, and wrote underneath the image " Herculi Victori," in token of his deliverance from the pirates. The chapel stood near the Porta Trigemina, at the foot of the Aventine. The story of its foundation is probably a temple legend. (Masurius Sabinus, Memorial, ii, ap. Macrob. Sat. iii. 6 ; Serv. ad Aen. viii. 363.) The latter, indeed, calls the pious merchant M. Octavius Eserninus, but his version of the story is substantially the same with that in Macrobius.
5. C. Herennius, was the hereditary patron of the Marii, and possessed probably a patrimonial estate near Arpinum. When C. Marius the elder, about b. c. 115, was impeached for bribery at his praetorian comitia, Herennius was cited, but refused to give evidence against him, alleging that it was unlawful for a patron to injure his client. (Plut. Mar. 5.)
6. M. Herennius, Avas consul in b. c. 93. (Fast. ; Obseq. 112.) Although a plebeian and an indifferent orator, he carried his election against the high-born and eloquent L. Marcius Philippus. (Cic. Brut. 45, pro Muren. 17.) Pliny (H. N. 19, 3) mentions the consulate of Herennius as remarkable for the quantity of Cyrenaic silphium — ferula Tingitana (Sprengel, Rei Herbar. p. 84.), then brought to Rome. This costly drug was worth a silver denarius the pound ; and the mercantile connections of the Herennii in Africa may have caused this unusual supply.
7. C. Herennius, was tribune of the plebs in b. c. 80, and opposed a rogatio of L. Sulla, the dictator, for recalling Cn. Pompey from Africa. (Sall. Hist. ii. ap. Gell. x. 20 ; comp. Plut. Pomp. 13.) After the death of Sulla, this Herennius probably joined Sertorius in Spain, b. c. 76 — 72 ; since a legatus of that name was defeated and slain by Pompey near Valentia. (Plut. Pomp. 18; Zonar. x. 2 ; Sall. Hist. iii. fragm. p. 215, ed. Gerlach. min.) Whether C. Herennius, a senator, convicted (before b. c. 69) of peculation (Cic. in Verr. i. 13. § 39), were the same person, is uncertain.
8. T. Herennius, a banker at Leptis in Africa, whom C. Verres, while praetor in Sicily, b. c. 73 — 71, put to death, although his character and innocence were attested by more than a hundred Roman citizens resident at Syracuse. (Cic. in Verr. i. 5, v. 59.)
9. C. Herennius, to whom the treatise on rhetoric — Rhetoricorum ad C. Herennium Libri IV. — is addressed, cannot be identified with any of the preceding or following Herennii (ad Herenn. i. 1, ii. 1, iv. 1, 56). Respecting this work, see Cicero, p. 726, &c.
10. M. Herennius, decurio of Pompeii, about b. c. 63. Shortly before the conspiracy of Catiline, Herennius was killed by lightning from a cloudless sky. This was accounted a prodigy in augural law, and the death of Herennius was reckoned among the portents which announced the danger of Rome from treason. (Plin. H. N. ii. 51.)
11. C. Herennius, son of Sext. Herennius (Cic. ad Att. i. 18), was tribune of the plebs in b. c. 59, when he zealously seconded P. Clodius [Claudius, No. 40] in his efforts to pass by adoption into a plebeian family. [Fonteius, No. 6.] (Cic. ad Att. i. 18, 19.)
12. L. Herennius, a friend of Cicero, who seconded L. Atratinus [Atratinus, No. 7] in his accusation of M. Caelius Rufus, b. c. 56. (Cic. pro Cael. 11.)
13. L. Herennius Balbus, demanded that the slaves (familia) of Milo and Fausta his wife should be submitted to the torture, in order to elicit their
