C. Proculeius
a Roman eques, one of the friends of Octavian, was sent by the latter, after the victory at Actium, to Antony and Cleopatra. Antony was just expiring when Proculeius arrived, having previously told Cleopatra to trust Proculeius more than any other of the friends of Octavian.
The account of his interview with Cleopatra is related at length by Plutarch, who calls him
Procleius (
Plut. Ant. 77-
79;
D. C. 51.11.)
It is of this Proculeius that Horace speaks (
Carm. 2.2) :--
Vivet extento Proculeius aevo,
Notus in fratres animi paterni:
and Porphyrio relates, in his commentary on this passage, that Proculeius divided his property with his brothers Caepio (not Scipio as in some editions) and Murena, who had lost their property in the civil wars.
It is also stated by Dio Cassius (54.3), that Proculeius was a brother of the Murena, who was condemned, in B. C. 22, on account of his conspiring against Augustus.
The nature of this relationship is, however, not clear.
The full name of this Murena was A. Terentius Varro Murena, and Drumann conjectures that he was the son of L. Licinius Murena, who was consul B. C. 62, and that he was adopted by A. Terentius Varro.
The same writer farther conjectures that Proculeius was the son of C. Licinius Murena, the brother of the consul of B. C. 62, and that he was adopted by some one of the name of Proculeius.
In that case Proculeius would have been the cousin of Murena. We know that it was common among the Romans to call cousins by the name of brothers (
frater patruelis and
frater). (Drumann,
Geschichte Roms, vol. iv. pp. 193, 194.)
The great intimacy of Proculeius with Augustus is attested by many writers. (Dio Cass.
l.c. ; Tac. Ann. 4.40;
Plin. Nat. 7.45. s. 46, 36.25. s. 59.) Dio Cassius (
l.c.) speaks of him and Maecenas as the principal friends of the emperor, and they both interceded, but to no purpose, for the life of their relation, Murena. We also learn from Tacitus (
l.c.), that he was one of the Romans to whom Augustus had thought of giving his daughter Julia in marriage. Proculeius put an end to his own life by taking gypsum, when suffering from a disease in the stomach. (
Plin. Nat. 36.25. s. 59.)
Coins
The following coin, which has C. PROCULEI L. F. on the reverse, may have been struck by the above-mentioned Proculeius.
It is uncertain to whom the head on the obverse refers; on the reverse we see a
bipennis. (Eckhel, vol. v. p. 289.)
