Vitulus

the name of a family of the Mamilia and Voconia gentes. Niebuhr supposes that Vitulus is merely another form of Italus, and remarks that we find in the same manner in the Mamilia gens a surname Turrinus, that is, Tyrrhenus. " It was customary, as is proved by the oldest Roman Fasti, for the great houses to take distinguishing surnames from a people with whom they were connected by blood, or by the ties of public hospitality." (Niebuhr, Hist. of Rome, vol. i. p. 14.) The ancients, however, as we see from the coin figured below, connected the surname Vitulus with the word signifying a calf.

1. L. Mamilius Vitulus, Q. F. M. N., consul B. C. 265 with Q. Fabius Maximus Gurges, the year before the breaking out of the first Punic war. (Zonar. 8.7.)

2. Q. Mamilius Vitulus, Q. F. M. N., brother of the preceding, was consul B. C. 262 with L. Postumius Magellus, the third year of the second Punic war. In conjunction with his colleague Vitulus took Agrigentum. (Plb. 1.17-20 ; Zonar. 8.10, who erroneously calls him Q. Aemilius.)

3. C. Mamilius Vitulus, was elected maximus curio in B. C. 209, being the first plebeian who had held that office. He was praetor in B. C. 208 with Sicily as his province, and was one of the ambassadors sent to Philip, king of Macedonia, in B. C. 203. He died in B. C. 174 of the pestilence which visited Rome in that year. (Liv. 27.8, 35, 36, 38, 30.26, 41.26.)

is only mentioned on coins, a specimen of which is given below, from which it appears that he was triumvir of the mint under Julius Caesar, and was quaestor designatus at the time the coin was struck. The obverse represents the head of Julius Caesar; the reverse a vitulus, or calf with Q. VOCONIVS VITVLVS Q. DESIGN. S. C. (Eckhel, vol. v. p. 344.)