Trivia on Sillius

Yes, quite a few, actually. Here you can access the edited and annotated results on querying the Internet for the name 'Sillius' (last updated: 2006-12-08)

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- No, we are not Romans - Yes, we are Womans - But then again ... !? (a 10⁶ thanks to Manu!) - 'Sillius' in a Byzantine encyclopaedia - 'Sillius' in Latinian Brescia (a 10⁶ thanks to Manu!) - 'Sillius' in Middle English - 'Sillius' in Shakespearean drama	- 'Sillius' and spelling - Foreign Tongues - 'Sillius' on film and video - 'Sillius' in song titles - Our own beer! - Our own Nintendo game!

No, we are not Romans

When feeding internet search engines with the name 'Sillius' you will definitely come accross the name of Sillius Domitius, living in the ... century b.c. in the Roman Empire. He is one of the ancestors of ....
Those of you who seriously believe the present day clan of Sillius's can be traced back to this origin are likely to believe anything, for instance that ...

Yes, we are Womans

... Sillius Soddus was a well known Roman citizen. Yeah, no way. Sillius Soddus is a fake name used by the character Pontius Pilate in the movie The Life of Brian made by the Monty Pythons Flying Circus team. For those of you who are interested in a full transcription of that hilarious scene, please click here.

But then again ...!?

See what I came across in some German university database on Latin inscriptions:

AE 1981, 0300.
T(itus) Sillius Karus / vivos(!) posuit sibi et /
Vetiliae Priscae con/tubernali cariss(imae) / et
Ianuariae fil(iae) / in fr(onte) p(edes) XX in
agr(o) p(edes) XX / qui hoc violarit / dabit aerario
Fa/leriens(i) HS II(milia)

Since my latin is a bit rusty (quamquam Latinum ad scholam habebam) I asked the world - i.e.: a classically scholared person - to help me out with a translation. And guess what: the polyglottal Manuela Sillius has taken up this challenge and she has delivered the following translation in German:

AE 1981, 0300.
T(itus) Sillius Karus Zu Lebzeiten übergab er gegen 2000 Sesterzen seine hübsche Tochter aus der Verbindung mit seiner geliebten Weggefährtin Vetilia Prisca, angesichts von 20 Fuß Ackerland, welches hierfür geboten wurde, an den Schmied Falerius (evtl. : den Schmied vom Stamm der Falisker).

'Sillius' in an ancient Byzantine encyclopaedia

The name 'Sillius' is also mentioned in the Suda, an ancient Byzantine encyclopaedia. The website says:

This is a selection of entries from the Byzantine encyclopaedia known as the Suda, in English translation. These entries are mainly concerned with grammarians, rhetoricians and sophists; but some other, more or less related, items are also included.

[S213] Sellius or Sillius, also called Homer.[[1]] Grammarian before Menander.[[2]]

'Sillius' in Latinian Brescia

It's a small step from the Roman Empire to present day Italy. This is what I came across on a site on some holiday resort in Italy (Darfo Boario Terme).

Sciano(Sciŕ) : deriva dal tedesco "see" (laghetto), oppure dal nome o aggettivo gentilizio "Silus o Sillius"presente in sei lapidi latine nel bresciano.

I know that terme means something like a 'natural hot water pool', but - once again - it was Manuela Sillius who provided us with a translation of the Italian source text into German:

"Sciano (Sciŕ)" leitet sich von dem deutschen Wort für "See" (in der Bedeutung kleiner See) beziehungsweise dem Adelszusatz "Silius oder Sillius" ab, welcher auf sechs lateinisch verfassten Steintafeln zu vorkommt, die in der Gegend von Brescia gefunden wurden.

'Sillius' in Middle English

More and more libraries are publishing ancient and medieval text sources on their internet sites. So it should come to no surprise that you might stumble accross the name 'Sillius' in some of these sources. This is one of them (the text is in Middle English):

Ah Ţet I Ţe sugge. Ţurh alle Ţing; ne makede heo noh[t] ćrst Ćlured king.
ah heo makede Ţa quene; Ţe me Mćrcie cleopede.
and Ćlured heo seide on Englisc; Ţis is seođ ful iwis.
Hćfde Ţas wise quene; bi hire weoreld-kinge.
ćnne lutelne sune; Sillius ihaten.
nefde heo children na ma; Ţer-foren wes Ţere quene wa.
Nefde Ţis child Sillius; buten seouen 3ećra.
Ţa his fader wes dćd. and his du3eđe bi-lećfde;
His moder nom Ţas riche; and mid rćde heo walde.
& wiste wel hire sone; a mid hire-seolue.
ţa Ţe sune wes swa ald; Ţat he wes an horse bald.
Ţa makede heo hine king; his folke hit wes iqueme.
He wes a god mon; & softe he wolde libben.

Edited from British Museum Ms. Cotton Caligula A.IX and British Museum Ms. Cotton Otho C.XIII by: G.L. Brook and R.F. Leslie 2 v. : facsim. ; 23 cm. : Published for the Early English Text Society by the Oxford University Press London ; New York 1963-1978 Early English Text Society ; no. 250, 277

'Sillius' in Shakespearean drama

It's just a small step from Middle English to the English of William Shakespeare. In one of his drama's entitled Anthony and Cleopatra we come across the following passage in Act 3, scene 1:

Romaine: "Noble Ventidius,
Whil'st yet with Parthian blood thy Sword is warme,
The Fugitiue Parthians follow. Spurre through Media,
Mesapotamia, and the shelters, whether
The routed flie. So thy grand Captaine Anthony
Shall set thee on triumphant Chariots, and
Put Garlands on thy head"
Ven.; "Oh Sillius, Sillius,
I haue done enough. A lower place note well
May make too great an act. For learne this Sillius,
Better to leaue vndone, then by our deed
Acquire too high a Fame, when him we serues away.

'Sillius' and spelling

For those of you eager to do some genealogical research on the name 'Sillius': be prepared for confusion on the spelling of our surname. Digging from my own experience I have compiled this list of misspellings of our surname:

So for all Sillius's around the world: whenever you want some some pencil pusher to spell our surname correctly, use one of the following spelling alfabets:

'Sillius' misspelled
S-i-l-i-u-s
S-i-l-i-e-s
S-i-l-v-i-u-s
S-i-r-i-u-s
C-i-l-l-i-u-s
C-i-l-i-u-s

Alfabet	S-i-l-l-i-u-s
International	Santiago-Italia-Liverpool-Liverpool-Italia-Uppsala-Santiago
The Netherlands	Simon-Izaak-Lodewijk-Lodewijk-Izaak-Utrecht-Simon
England	Susan-Isabel-Liverpool-Liverpool-Isabel-Ulysses-Susan
Germany	Samuel-Ida-Ludwig-Ludwig-Ida-Ulrich-Samuel
France	Suzanne-Irina-Louis-Louis-Irina-Ursule-Suzanne
Belgium	Suzanne-Isidore-Léopold-Léopold-Isidore-Ursule-Suzanne
USA	Sugar-Item-Love-Love-Item-Uncle-Sugar
Aerospace	Siera-India-Lima-Lima-India-Uniform-Siera

Foreign tongues

Language	Pronounciation	Meaning
Japanese	Shi-ri-u-su	serious

'Sillius' on film and video

They haven't made their way to Hollywood yet, they even haven't made their way to the Australian version of Hollywood yet: the Plafjae video production group from around Wollongong and Sydney, Australia. All for the better, because their artistical independence would be at risk and video productions like Cassius Sillius could not be made anymore! This is how they present themselves:

"We are a small video production group, based around Wollongong & Sydney, Australia. We produce independent short films and videos specialising in offbeat, zero to minimal budget movies and animation, in S-VHS format. We have progressed from humble beginnings where we would borrow a cheap handycam of a weekend, to our current inventory, including an array of domestic video & sound editing equipment as well as access to Betacam SP and high level professional 3D computer graphics & effects systems".

If you can, visit the Plafjae video productions website. Since internet connections with 'down under' can be slow at times, I have mirrored a freely available excerpt of their Cassius Sillius video production on my server: get the excerpt (size: 1.0Mb; format: *.mov: duration: 10 secs).

By the way, Aussies: the Sydney Olympic Games were great and so is Kylie. And I love all those ...gong words: although I'm from Holland I know what a wobbegong is and back in the seventies I favoured tennis player Yvonne Goolagong far more than that stuckup tart Chris Evert.

'Sillius' in song titles

A one-man band called Roostarr (based in Northlake, Illinois) has choosen to name one of his songs Sillius Dopamine. On the website artists.mp3.com you can download this song, or you could even buy it on Cd (CD-title: Who should it be?). Here is a short song description:

Description: Aphex Twin-ish beats with stereo, treble, resonance and flutes.
CD-title: Who Should I Be?
Label: Dining Room Records, EFSB
Credits: Me, Aphex Twin, Da Man

"Well, it started out as a cover of the Mario theme, but i couldnt get the notes right, so it evolved into this Aphex Twin-ish thing."

Our own beer!

We Sillius's even have our own beer: Sillius Soddus (well, sort of, at least). This is from a list of beers compiled for the Tremendous Tenth Doncaster Beer Festival:

Brewery	Location	Beer Name	% ABV	Style
King & Smart	Market Rasen	Sillius Soddus	3.8 % ABV	Bitter

If someone can get a hold of a bottle: send in a picture. Better still: send in a bottle!

Our own Nintendo game!

We Sillius's even have a Nintendo game named after us: "Journey to Sillius". If someone has a screenshot available of the title screen of this game, do send it in!

Send them in!

Got some trivia yourselves, fellow Sillius's? Mail them and I will publish them on this website, the One&Only Offical Sillius Webring.

Any trivia on the name 'Sillius'?