M. Lamponius
a Lucanian, was one of the principal captains of the Italians in the war of the allies with Rome, B. C. 90-88. He commanded in his native province at the breaking out of the war, since he drove P. Licinius Crassus [CRASSUS, LICINIUS, No. 14] with great loss into Grumentum. (Frontin. Strat. 2.4, 16.) In the last war with Sulla, B. C. 83-2, when the Samnites and Lucanians had become the allies of the Marian party at Rome, Lamponius was the companion of Pontius of Telesia in his march upon the capital. After victory finally declared for Sulla at the Colline gate, Lamponius disappeared with the herd of fugitives. (Appian, App. BC 1.40, 41, 90, 93; Plut. Sull. 29; Flor. 3.21; Eutrop. 5.8.) Ἀπώνιος in Diodorus (xxxvii. Eclog. i.) is a misreading for Lamponius.
From William Smith (ed.), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. Text provided under a CC BY-SA license by Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Tufts University. Data accessed from https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-pdlrefwk/ on 17 October 2026.