Gessia (gens)

The gens Gessia was a minor Roman family, known chiefly from the east of Imperial times. None of its members held any curule magistracies, although the emperor Severus Alexander is believed to have descended from a branch of this gens.

Members

• Decimus Gessius, father of the Delian Gessius.
• Decimus Gessius D. f., mentioned in an inscription from Delos, dated to about 125 BC.
• Lucius Gessius Optatus, built an altar for Neptune at Roatto.^[1]
• Publius Gessius, father of Publius Gessius.
• Publius Gessius P. f., mentioned on a monument found near Viterbo, probably dating to about AD 50.^[2]
• Publius Gessius P. l. Primus, freedman of Publius Gessius.
• Gessia P. l. Fausta, freedwoman of Publius Gessius.
• Aulus Gessius was the chief magistrate of Smyrna during the reigns of Claudius and Nero. His name is preserved on coins commemorating the marriage of Claudius and Agrippina the Younger.^[3]
• Gessius Florus, procurator of Judea during the reign of Nero. Josephus considers his numerous abuses of power and efforts to distract attention from them with instigating the First Jewish–Roman War.
• Marcus Julius Gessius Marcianus, procurator, possibly in Syria, in the latter part of the second century, and perhaps the early part of the third; he was reputedly the father of Severus Alexander. He was put to death on the orders of Macrinus in 218.^[4]
• Marcus Julius Gessius Bassianus, a priest of the Arval Brethren during the reign of Caracalla; possibly a brother of Severus Alexander.
• Theoclia, the sister of Severus Alexander; she married a Roman aristocrat named Messalla. Both were murdered on the orders of Macrinus in 218.
• Marcus Julius Gessius Bassianus Alexianus, otherwise known as Severus Alexander, emperor from AD 222 to 235.

See also

List of Roman gentes

References

Bibliography

• Lucius Cassius Dio Cocceianus (Cassius Dio), Roman History.
• Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum.
• Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, William Smith, ed., Little, Brown and Company, Boston (1849).