Sila'nus, Ju'nius
8. M.
Junius Silanus, M. F.. son of No. 6, consul under Tiberius, A. D. 19, with L. Norbanus Balbus These consuls gave their name to the Lex Junia Norbana, which enacted that slaves manumitted without the requisite formalities should, in certain cases, have the status of Latini : such persons were called Latini Juniani (see
Dict. of Antiq. p. 693a, 2d ed.). Tacitus speaks of Silanus as pre-eminently distinguished by his high nobility and eloquence. In A. D. 20 he obtained from Tiberius the recal of his brother [No. 9] from exile. Like the other senators he endeavoured to gain the favour of the emperor by flattery.
He proposed in A. D. 22 that all public and private documents should not hear in future the names of the consuls, but the names of those who possessed the tribunician power, that is, of the emperors. In A. D. 33 his daughter Claudia, or Junia Claudilla, as she is called by Suetonius (
Cal. 12), was married to C. Caesar, afterwards the emperor Caligula. Silanus was governor of Africa in the reign of Caligula; but the suspicious tyrant feared his father-in-law, and accordingly first deprived him of all power in the province by compelling him to share the government with an imperial legatus, and afterwards compelled him to put an end to his life. Julius Graecinus, the father of Agricola, had been ordered by Caligula to accuse Silanus, but he declined the odious task. (
Tac. Ann. 2.59,
3.24,
57,
6.20,
Hist. 4.48,
Agr. 4;
D. C. 57.18,
59.8; Suet.
Cal. 12, 23.）
