Seccia gens


The gens Seccia, Secia, or Siccia was a minor plebeian family at ancient Rome. Few members of this gens occur in history, but a number are known from inscriptions. The best known members include Lucius Siccius Dentatus, who won martial fame in the fifth century BC, and Gaius Secius Campanus suffect consul under Domitian.

Origin

The nomen Seccius seems to be derived from the cognomen Secus. Chase classifies it among those gentilicia that either originated at Rome, or cannot be shown to have come from anywhere else. The surname Campanus, borne by the consul Secius, belongs to a class of cognomina derived from places of origin or residence, and indicates that at least some of this family claimed Campanian ancestry, or some other connection with that region of Italy.

Praenomina

The main praenomina of the Seccii were Gaius, Gnaeus, Lucius, and Sextus, all of which were very common throughout Roman history.

Branches and cognomina

There is no evidence that the Seccii were ever divided into distinct families. The surname Dentatus, borne by one of the earliest appearing in history, referred to someone with prominent teeth. The other cognomina of this gens occur largely in imperial times, when they used a great variety, some of which were the original names of freedmen who adopted Roman names upon their manumission. A large number of them bore the surname Secundus and its derivatives, Secundinus and Secundina, and the diminutive Secundilla, originally given to a second child. In its masculine form it is only found as a surname under the Republic, but the feminine form, Secunda, was a common praenomen among Roman women, and in imperial times the distinction between the name as a praenomen and a cognomen begins to blur.

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