A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology

1. 2. M.LivineiusRegulus and L. LIVINEICS REGULUS, two brothers, who were friends of Cicero, and displayed their zeal in his cause when he was banished, B. C. 58. Cicero does not mention their gentile name; but as he speaks of Livineius as a freedman of M. Regulus, and L. Livineius Trypho as a freedman of L. Regulus, there can be no doubt that their gentile name was Livineius (Cic. Att. 3.17, ad Fam. 13.60). One of these brothers, probably Lucius, fought under Caesar in the African war, B. C. 46 (Hirt. B. Afr. 89), and he is apparently the same as the L. LIVINEIUS REGULUS, whose name occurs on a great number of coins struck in the time of Julius Caesar and Augustus. Specimens of the most important of these are given below. The head on the obverse of the first four is the same, and is probably intended to represent some ancestor of the Reguli. On the obverse of the first we have the legend L. REGVLVS PR., and on the reverse REGVLVS F. PRAEF. (VR.) The PR. on the obverse signifies praetor, and REGVLVS F. on the reverse signifies REGULUS FILIUS. It would, therefore, appear that the coins were struck by Regulus, the son of L. Regulus the praetor ; and from the addition of PRAEF. VR., that is, Praefectus Urbi, it would further seem that he was one of the praefecti urbi, who were left by Caesar in charge of the city, when he marched against the sons of Pompey in Spain in B. C. 45. (D. C. 43.28.) These praefects had the right of the fasces and the sella curulis, as appears from the reverse of the first two coins. The combats of wild beasts on the reverse of the third coin probably refer to the splendid games exhibited by Julius Caesar. The fifth coin was struck at a later time by Regulus, when he was triumvir of the mint under Augustus. On the obverse is the head of Augustus with c. CAESAR III. VIR R. P. C. (i. e. triumvir reipublicae constituendae), and on the reverse a figure of Victory. (Eckhel, vol. v. pp. 235, 237.)