As many devotees of Michael Palin's inspired turn as Pontius Pilate will remember, he had a couple of friends, one very great friend, in fact, in Rome whose names inspired uncontrollable mirth on the part of the common soldiery. The straight line that leads to this marvelous piece of character acting is supplied by John Cleese, who says, "It's a joke name, Sir ... like Sillius Sodus or ..."
Well, turns out that the room full of monkeys on typewriters that make up the translators of ancient Latin texts have given us at least one ancient with exactly that name: Silius Italicus. Ran across him in a book on the Etruscans, about whom he apparently had something to say. According to easily available sources (the only kind I consult,) Silius was a kind of proto Robert McNamara, doing bad things for a while, then being really sorry about it, later on. Look him up on the net, if you're interested (either of 'em, Silius or McNamara, don't matter to me.)
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