NONI3752 -. Nonius (?) Struma

Career

  • Praetor? c. 55 (Broughton MRR III) Expand
    • n MRR 2.447 (with date to 63), and Index, 595, refer also to Crawford, RRC 1.445-446, no. 421 (Sufenas), 59 B.C. Quaestor. Date uncertain, since his coinage, issued SC, provides no evidence that he was then a quaestor (Crawford, RRC loc. Cit., and 1.88, note 3). Tr. Pl. 56? His tribunate is an inference from his prosecution in 54, along with the tribune of 56, C. Porcius Cato (6) for ambitus and/or interference with the elections (Cic. Att. 4.15.4; cf. 4.16.5-6; see Gruen, LGRR 314-315), most probably the former, as he, Cato, and Procilius (q.v.) were all tried in different quaestiones the same day. See L. R. Taylor, Athenaeum 42, 1964, 12-28, esp. 19, note 19; and J. Linderski, Studi E. Volterra 2.281-302, esp. 284ff. and 302. Praetor 55? His praetorship and its date depend on three factors: first, moving the curule aedileship of Cn. Plancius and A. Plautius from 54, as in MRR 2.223, to 55, removes the possibility that Nonius could have held it then (cf. 2.216) (unless perhaps he was an aedile of the plebs, since they also had curule chairs after Sulla; L. R. Taylor, AJPh 60, 1939, 194-202; see below); second, delay of the elections for 55 to an interregnum in the early part of that year, when the new consuls Pompey and Crassus could aid their supporters (Dio 39.32), made it possible for a tribune of 56, leaving office by December 10, to become a candidate for a curule magistracy, be it aedileship or praetorship, in 55 (see below, on Cn. Plancius and A. Plautius); third, and least certain, it is necessary to identify Sufenas with the Nonius Struma in Catullus 52 (Sella in curuli Struma Nonius sedet), taking the word struma as a nickname and assuming that the Leges Annales allowed Sufenas to advance from tribunate to praetorship (Taylor, and Linderski, above). This fits in nicely, in view of the senatorial decree of 53 which created an interval of five years between office in Rome and provincial command, with the governorship of a M. Nonius (2.343) in an eastern province, probably Macedonia, in 51 and 50 (Shackleton Bailey, CLA 3.246, on Att. 6.1.13), or the imperium of a Sufenas who is listed in Att. 8.15.3, as having a military command in March 49, but hardly with both (Shackleton Bailey, loc. Cit.). There may therefore have been two contemporary Nonii, apart from the Nonii Asprenates, who do not appear until 46. Both must have attained to praetorships and one (Struma) almost certainly before the death of Catullus (54?). The cognomen may help to identify the career of the other. As Cn. Tremellius Scrofa had been given charge in 52-51 of a minor eastern province, probably Crete and Cyrene, the M. Nonius named in Att. 6.1.13 was governor of Macedonia (Shackleton Bailey, CLA 1.246). Against L. R. Taylor’s identification of Sufenas with Struma Nonius (see above), Shackleton Bailey notes that Sufenas was one of a number of Pompeians who held imperium in Italy in March 49 (Att. 8.15.3) and identifies “Struma” Nonius with the provincial governor. (Broughton MRR III)