Cosconius

• name of a Roman plebeian gens; esp.,
• • • 1 C. Cosconius, praetor during Cicero's consulate, also known as a writer on antiquities, Varr. L. L. 6, § 39, and § 89 Müll.; Cic. Sull. 14, 42; id. Brut. 69, 242.—
    • 2 C. Cosconius Calidianus, an inferior orator, Cic. Brut. 69, 242.—
    • 3 A writer of epigrams, Mart. 2, 77, 1; 3, 69, 7.

1. M. Cosconius, military tribune in the army of the praetor P. Quinctilius Varus, fell in the battle fought with Mago in the land of the Insubrian Gauls, B. C. 203. (Liv. 30.18.)

2. M. Cosconius, perhaps grandson of the preceding, praetor in B. C. 135, fought successfully with the Scordisci in Thrace. (Liv. Epit. 56.)

3. C. Cosconius, praetor in the Social war, B. C. 89, distinguished himself in the command of one of the Roman armies. According to Livy (Liv. Epit. 75) Cosconius and Lucceius defeated the Samnites in battle, slew Marius Egnatius, the most distinguished of the enemy's generals, and received the surrender of very many towns. Appian (App. BC 1.52) says, that Cosconius burnt Salapia, took possession of Cannae, and then proceeded to besiege Canusium; but a Samnite army came to the relief of the town, which defeated Cosconius and obliged him to fall back upon Cannae. Trebatius, the Samnite general, following up his advantage, crossed the Aufidus, but was attacked, immediately after his passage of the river, by Cosconius, defeated with a loss of 15,000 men, and fled with the remnant to Canusium. Hereupon, Cosconius marched into the territories of the Larinates, Venusini, and Apulians, and conquered the Poediculi in two days. Most modern commentators Appian has made a mistake in the name (Schweigh. ad App. l.c.); but Livy and Appian probably speak of two different battles.

The above-named Cosconius seems to be the same with the C. Cosconius who was sent into Illyricum, with the title of proconsul, about B. C. 78, and who conquered a great part of Dalmatia, took Salonae, and, after concluding the war, returned to Rome at the end of two years' time. (Eutrop. 6.4; Oros. 5.23; comp. Cic. Clu. 35.)

4. C. Cosconius Calidianus, adopted from the Calidia gens, a Roman orator of little merit, distinguished for his vehement action and gesticulation (Cic. Brut. 69), is perhaps the same person as the preceding or succeeding.

5. C. Cosconius, praetor in B. C. 63, the same year that Cicero was consul, obtained in the following-year the province of Further Spain, with the title of proconsul, and was, it seems, on his return accused of extortion, but acquitted. He was one of the twenty commissioners appointed in B. C. 59 to carry into execution the agrarian law of Julius Caesar for dividing the public lands in Campania, but he died in this year, and his vacant place was offered to Cicero by Caesar, who wished to withdraw him from the threatened attack of Clodius. This offer, however, was refused by Cicero. (Cic. pro Sull. 14, in Vatin. 5; comp. V. Max. 8.1.8; Cic. Att. 2.19, 9.2, A; Quint. Inst. 12.1. . § 16.)

6. C. Cosconius, tribune of the plebs in B. C. 59, when he was one of the colleagues of P. Vatinius, aedile in 57, and one of the judices in the following year, 56, in the trial of P. Sextius. In the same year, C. Cato, the tribune of the plebs, purchased of Cosconius some bestiarii which the latter had undoubtedly exhibited the year before in the games of his aedileship. It seems that Cosconius subsequently obtained the aedileship, for Plutarch states, that Cosconius and Galba, two men of praetorian rank, were murdered by Caesar's soldiers in the mutiny in Campania, B. C. 47, and we know of no other Cosconius who is likely to have been praetor. (Cic. in uatin. 7, ad Q. Fr. 2.6; Plut. Caes. 51; comp. Dion. Cass. 42.52, Βουλευτὰς δύο.)

7. Cosconius, a writer of Epigrams in the time of Martial, attacked the latter on account of the length of his epigrams and their lascivious nature. He is severely handled in two epigrams of Martial. (2.77, 3.69; comp. Weichert, Poetarum Latinorum Reliquiae, p. 249, &c.)

Varro speaks (L. L. 6.36, 89, ed. Müller) of a Cosconius who wrote a grammatical work and another on "Actiones," but it is uncertain who he was.

It is also doubtful to which of the Cosconii the following coin refers. It contains on the obverse the head of Pallas, with L. Cosc. M. F., and on the reverse Mars driving a chariot, with L. Lic. CN. Dom. It is therefore supposed that this Cosconius was a triumvir of the mint at the time that L. Licinius and Cn. Domitius held one of the higher magistracies; and as we find that they were censors in B. C. 92, the coin is referred to that year. (Eckhel. v. p. 196.)