The gens Aurunculeia was a
plebeian family at
Rome. None of the members of this
gens ever obtained the
consulship; the first who obtained the
praetorship was Gaius Aurunculeius, in 209 BC.[1]
Origin
The
nomen Aurunculeius is probably derived from the name of the
Aurunci, a race of people from rural
Campania, conquered by the Romans in 314 BC, during the
Second Samnite War. The Aurunculei may have been of Auruncan origin, or perhaps less probably, descendants of the colonists sent to the towns of the Aurunci beginning in 313.[2][3]
Branches and cognomina
The only
cognomen associated with the Aurunculeii is Cotta.[4]
Lucius Aurunculeius, praetor urbanus in 190 BC, and one of ten commissioners sent to arrange the affairs of
Asia at the conclusion of the war with
Antiochus the Great, in 188.[7]
Gaius Aurunculeius, one of three ambassadors sent into Asia in 155 BC, to prevent
Prusias II of Bithynia from making war upon
Attalus.[8]