The gens Plancia was a minor plebeian family of equestrian rank at ancient Rome. Few members of this gens are mentioned in the time of the Republic, but a family of the Plancii rose to prominence from the time of Vespasian, and held a number of important magistracies through the time of Hadrian. Other Plancii are known from inscriptions.[2]
Origin
The nomenPlancius is derived from the common Latin surname Plancus, originally referring to a person with flat feet. The Plancii must therefore have been Latins. Chase classifies them among those families that either originated at Rome, or cannot be shown to have originated anywhere else. However, the Plancii known to Cicero hailed from Atina, a town in southern Latium that had been taken during the Samnite Wars.[3]
Members
This list includes abbreviated praenomina. For an explanation of this practice, see filiation.
Gnaeus Plancius, an eques who served under Publius Licinius Crassus, consul in 97 BC. Plancius became a publican, and was influential in his field, pressing for a law reducing the amount that the publicani had to pay for the taxes in Asia. He was an early supporter of Caesar, who reduced the fee in 59 BC, to the great annoyance of the aristocracy.[4]
Marcus Plancius Augustalis, buried at Rome, aged eight years, seven months, and ten days.[14]
Marcus Plancius Prunicus, a freedman buried at Rome.[14]
Gnaeus Plancius Cn. l. Turpio, a freedman named in a funerary inscription from Rome.[15]
Marcus Plancius Valens, buried at Germa in Galatia, with a monument from his son, Marcus.[16]
Marcus Plancius M. f. Va[...], build a monument at Germa for his father, Marcus Plancius Valens. He might be the same person as the governor Marcus Plancius Varus.[16]
^ abCicero, Pro Plancio, Epistulae ad Quintum Fratrem, ii. 1. § 3, Epistulae ad Atticum, iii. 1. § 4, 14, 22, Epistulae ad Familiares, iv. 14, 15, vi. 20, xiv. 1, xvi. 9.
René Cagnat et alii, L'Année épigraphique (The Year in Epigraphy, abbreviated AE), Presses Universitaires de France (1888–present).
George Davis Chase, "The Origin of Roman Praenomina", in Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, vol. VIII (1897).
T. Robert S. Broughton, The Magistrates of the Roman Republic, American Philological Association (1952).
Anna Sadurska, Inscriptions Latines & Monuments Funéraires Romains au Musée National de Varsovie (Latin Inscriptions and Roman Monuments from the National Museum of Warsaw, abbreviated ILVarsovie), Warsaw (1953).
Giovanni Battista Brusin, Inscriptiones Aquileiae (Inscriptions of Aquileia, abbreviated InscrAqu), Udine (1991–1993).
Inschriften Griechischer Städte aus Kleinasien (Inscriptions from the Greek Cities of Asia Minor, abbreviated IK): 54. Die Inschriften von Perge 1, Bonn (1999).