person
Damasippus
also: Damasippus
A Roman art-dealer and connoisseur active in the 40s BC, through whom the statues Gallus bought for Cicero (Fam. 7.23) were to pass; Cicero coins 'Pseudodamasippus' for any rival dealer. Plausibly the Damasippus whose bankruptcy and turn to Stoic philosophy Horace mocks in Satires 2.3.
Reading notes
- Ad Atticum 12.33 §1 divided up the river-bank into lots of so-many iugera apiece
Damasippus, a speculative property dealer, had parcelled the Tiber bank (trans Tiberim) into standard-sized building lots at fixed prices. A iugerum is a Roman unit of land, about a quarter of a modern acre.
- Ad Familiares 7.23 §2 Damasippus
A Roman art-dealer and connoisseur of the 40s BC, on whom Cicero hoped to offload the unwanted statues; he coins 'pseudo-Damasippus' for any rival dealer. Plausibly the bankrupt collector-turned-Stoic mocked by Horace, Satires 2.3.