A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology

1. C.ThoriusBalbus, of Lanuvium, is said by Cicero to have lived in such a manner, that there was not a single pleasure, however refined and rare, which he did not enjoy. (De Fin. 2.20.) He must not be confounded, as he has been by Pighius, with L. Turius who is mentioned in Cicero's Brutus (100.67). The annexed coin of L. Thorius Balbus contains on the obverse the head of Juno Sospita, whose worship was of great antiquity

at Lanuvium, with the letters I. S. M. R. (that is, Junonis Sospitae magnae reginae); and on the reverse L. THORIUS BAABVS, with a bull rushing forward. Eckhel (v. p. 324, &c.) thinks that the bull has an allusion to the name of Thorius, which the Romans might regard as the same as the Greek θούριος, impetuous.