The Sestius Family and Their Realms of Wine

Amphoras stamped “SES” or “SEST,” the trademark of the Sestius family, have been found throughout the western Mediterranean. The Sestii, a prominent Roman family, are frequently mentioned in ancient sources. The Roman orator Cicero (106–43 B.C.) wrote that his friend Publius Sestius had an estate at Cosa—probably the factory that supplied much of the Roman world with wine amphoras and their contents.

Publius Sestius’s son, Lucius Sestius, was a friend of the poet Horace. Lucius and Horace fought with Brutus, Julius Caesar’s assassin, at the Battle of Philippi (42 B.C.), where Brutus was defeated, and put to death, by Mark Antony. Lucius and Horace were proscribed (their property confiscated) for choosing the wrong side in the civil war. The Cosa amphora factory, which the Sestii had been operating for more than a century, was probably destroyed at this time as punishment for Lucius’s “treason.”

In 39 B.C. Lucius Sestius was granted amnesty and the factory at Cosa went back in business. Lucius also started a brick factory near Rome, becoming one of the first commercial manufacturers of fired bricks. Despite his republican feelings (he kept a likeness of Brutus in his home), he was appointed consul suffectus in 23 B.C. by Augustus.