Caedicia gens

Members of this gens first came to prominence in the early decades of the Republic, but none obtained the consulship until Quintus Caedicius Noctua in 289 BC.

The family faded from public life during the later Republic, but one of the Caedicii was known to Juvenal, toward the end of the first century AD.

[1][2] The nomen Caedicius belongs to a class of gentilicia derived from cognomina ending in -ex or -icus.

Surnames derived from familiar objects and animals were quite common at Rome.

[1][4][5] Several numismatists, such as Grueber, nevertheless suggest that this cognomen was a reference to a supernatural warning that Marcus Caedicius witnessed before the Gallic Sack of Rome in 390 BC.

Denarius possibly minted by a Caecidius Noctua between 194 and 190 BC. The owl on the reverse may be an allusion to the moneyer's cognomen .