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The Family and Early Career of T. Quinctius Flamininus1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2012

E. Badian
E. Badian
Affiliation:
Harvard University
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Extract

There is hardly a more important character in the history of the Roman Republic than the young Patrician who first laid down the lines of Roman policy in Greece and the East—and hardly a more mysterious one, despite frequent discussion. It is only the first and perhaps the most puzzling of the problems concerning him that will occupy us here; but the very fact that it is the first gives it an importance quite independent of other considerations: we are not likely to solve the others as long as this one is ignored.

How did a young man of about twenty-nine come to be elected to a consulship and entrusted with a major war that had been going badly for Rome, after holding no office higher than the quaestorship—and holding even this lowly charge so inconspicuously that Livy does not even mention him in it? The very facts make it clear that we cannot give a certain answer: the evidence is not good enough.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Roman Studies , Volume 61 , November 1971 , pp. 102 - 111
Copyright
Copyright ©E. Badian 1971. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

2 MRR i, 329, n. 2, rightly notes that ex quaestura does not mean ‘straight after the quaestorship’, as Weissenborn took it.

3 The question of whether he was supported by Scipio or opposed by him has been indecisively debated: see, e.g., Münzer, Röm. Adelsp. 117 f.; Frank, , CAH viii, 368Google Scholar; Scullard, Rom. Pol. 97 (a compromise suggestion).

4 Münzer, Röm. Adelsp. 118; my translation.

5 I propose to use the name ‘Titus’ to designate him, as the Greeks did. It will conduce to brevity.

6 See RE, s.v. ‘Quinctius’. Since all Romans were bearded in those days before 300, the name ‘Barbatus’ must have referred to special luxuriance.

7 Röm. Adelsp. 116, taken over by Gundel with one essential improvement.

8 Varro, , r.r. ii, 11Google Scholar, 10 f.; cf. Plin., , n.h. vii, 211Google Scholar. Either 301 or 300 is possible.

9 Sydenham, CRR 505.

10 Gell. x, 15, 11.

11 See Münzer's stemma for the result of this story.

12 Cf., for what it is worth, FgrHist 138 F 11—a dubious story, but a valid practical point.

13 Röm. Adelsp. 122.

14 See Gundel's stemma in RE, as compared with Münzer's. He does not notice that much of the point of the story is lost by this concession to reality.

15 Münzer mentions this man on p. 115, but ignores him later.

16 See CR 1964, 139 f.

17 See Münzer, , Röm. Adelsp. 114, 116Google Scholar, 120 for the connection. Apart from the (probably legendary—see Gundel, RE, s.v. ‘Quinctius’, no. 8) son of the great Cincinnatus, the name only appears in the gens with the cos. 271, after the Fabii have stopped using it.

18 To be precise, there appears to be one exception to this, interesting enough to be pursued. A man called L. Acilius K.f. turns up in the great list of Delphic proxeni (SIG 3 585, no. 47)—clearly, as everyone has recognized, the father of the cos. 150, M' Acilius L.f. K.n. Balbus (see note SIG 3, ad loc). Who was K. Acilius ? Nothing further is known about him. But the son L. Acilius receives his Delphic honour early in 188, and the name immediately preceding his on the list is—T. Quinctius T.f., clearly our Titus. (The awards may be connected with the Delphic embassy to Rome, as suggested in the SIG 3 note. For this see Sherk, RDGE, pp. 24 f., where these proxenies should be added.) Coincidence is wholly excluded when we find that in the next generation the son of this L. Acilius shares a consulship with the son of Titus: they are the consuls of 150 B.C. Münzer (Röm. Adelsp. 120) noticed the connection, which he ascribed to ‘common political views and actions’. Noting the name ‘Caeso’, we may surely go one step further: cognatio (through the mother) is the only plausible explanation of the appearance of the odd praenomen, in this one instance, in a family different from—but closely allied to—the Flaminini. Since their sons were consuls together, the fathers (Titus and L. Acilius) were presumably of much the same age, as were the grandfathers (Titus' father and K. Acilius). K. Acilius must be the son of a Quinctia, who would be (most easily—though since women married young, one cannot be sure) an aunt of Titus' father. I have conjecturally inserted her in the stemma in this place, as a daughter of the cos. 271: her son would be given her father's unusual name, no doubt to point the connection of the new family of the Acilii with the Patrician Quinctii. Compare, in reverse, the story of the name ‘Numerius’ in the Fabian gens (Auct. praen. 6; Festus 174 L).

19 The only instance we know—L. Cornelius Merula, cos. suff. 87 (MRR ii, 47)—was anything but a bona fide consul: he was elected in order to ensure that his colleague Cn. Octavius had unrestricted power.

20 Livy xxii, 33, 7 f.

21 Livy xxiii, 30, 13 f.; 31, 9.

22 Nothing is known about C. Pupius, Flamininus' colleague in 217 and the first bearer of that nomen in Roman history. (But see RE, s.v. ‘Pupius’, no. 9.) Presumably these men were appointed because at this time the few praetorians and consulars were not available—any more than the regular curule magistrates—for such tasks. It is noteworthy that for dedicating the temple two men of good family, but unknown to us, were chosen: Livy xxiii, 21, 7.

23 Livy xli, 8, 1; cf. Münzer, Röm. Adelsp. 120, considering various possibilities (including forgery), but not doubting the praenomen. As Dr. McDonald reminds me, our text here is based on nothing better than an apograph.

24 It is difficult to distinguish between confusion in the text of Livy and earlier confusion (perhaps also textual, at least in part) in the tradition that Livy knew. Such confusion can start early: cf. Livy vii, 22, 3.

25 Livy xxvii, 22, 3.

26 MRR i, 238.

27 Madvig wrote ‘flamen’—eliminating the cognomen unique in the aristocracy, but creating new difficulties (see OCT ad loc.) and leaving the main problems.

28 Sherk, RDGE 12, no. 21. See Taylor, VDRR 203, rightly emending the tribe.

29 JRS 1962, 208 f.

30 See RE s.v., no. 295: C. Claudius (302) is obviously the oldest surviving son, some years older than Appius (296). The usual inference is possible.

31 See Suet., Tib. 1.

32 Compare, e.g., the Pompeii: the name ‘Sextus’ appears once in a branch usually distinguished by ‘A.’ and ‘Q.’; and it is this unique name for a third son that demonstrates the fact that all the aristocratic Pompeii were conscious of a common descent—not, as has often been thought, entirely unrelated families (see Historia 1963, 138).

33 Livy xxvii, 22, 3. At the first mention of the man (xxvii, 21, 5), Frobenius' second edition adds ‘Flamen’ (others ‘Flaminius’!). Dr. McDonald reminds me that the auctoritas of that scholar has been vindicated by Billanovich. Still, this looks like a guess (at whatever stage) by one who expected the name at the first mention of the man and introduced it from the second. I therefore still accept the comment of the Oxford editors: ‘sc. ex c. 22, 3 sumptum.’ It never recurs after the second mention (in the dative).

34 e.g. Q. Fabius Maximus Verrucosus; P. Licinius Crassus Dives; Cn. Fulvius Centumalus Maximus; P. Sulpicius Galba Maximus; L. et P. Cornelii Lentuli Caudini; M. Servilius Pulex Geminus; and some Scipiones. For early confusion in the tradition accessible to Livy, see n. 24.

35 Pol. xviii, 12, 5 (198 or early 197 B.C.): ‘not over thirty’. Cf. Plut., , Tit. 2, 2Google Scholar: ‘not yet thirty’ when elected; Livy xxxiii, 33, 3: ‘nearly thirty-three’ at the Isthmian Games of 196. The Livian passage may rest on Livy's own calculation from Polybian references or may render a direct statement in Polybius, which no longer survives. In any case, it seems that both Plutarch and Livy (who read more of Polybius than we have, thus perhaps more than the vague statement at xviii, 12, 5) took Titus' date of birth to be 229/8. This is as near as we can hope to get to it.

36 MRR i, 289, 293. Fraccaro, , Opuscula ii, 218Google Scholar, surveying the military tribunates of Scipio Africanus, of Cato and of Titus (216, 214, 208 respectively), concluded that the minimum of five years' service before that office, if it already existed at the time, must have been occasionally ignored in the emergency of the Hannibalic War. There is no reason to think that it had existed, any more than other rules regulating ages and careers. Scipio (Pol. x. 3, 4; see Walbank, Comm. ad loc.) and Cato (Plut., Cat. Maj. 1) started their military service at the normal age and mus t have been tribunes in their third year of service. Since no military tribune younger than Scipio and Cato is recorded, it is highly unlikely that Titus was younger, i.e. born after 228; which fits in with the Polybian tradition. Of the four Patrician nobles who were military tribunes in 216 (MRR i, 250 f.), one (Ap. Claudius) had already been aedile in 217, while another (Cn. Lentulus) was to be quaester only in 212. The consulships of these four range from 213 to 201.

37 Livy xxix, 13, 6.

38 Livy xxvii, 22, 3; 36, 13.

39 Livy xxviii, 10, 10 and 15.

40 See n. 37. Of course, not necessarily for the whole of that year: we simply do not know when he was first appointed.

41 The parallel of the great Scipio might suggest an appointment after his uncle's death, to avenge the family honour. But this is unlikely. ‘Q. Claudius’ can hardly have fallen in battle, to be spectacularly succeeded by young Titus: even Livy could hardly have missed this. Both the death and the appointment must have been inconspicuous—if they came in the middle of a year, they would more easily be over-looked.

42 Livy xxx, 25, fin. (See Weissenborn's note.)

43 Livy xxx, 27 (202 B.C.).

44 On L. Flamininus see Appendix.

45 Scipio: RE, s.v. ‘Cornelius’, no. 336. Galba: Livy xxv, 41, 11. Lentulus: RE, s.v. ‘Cornelius’, no. 188. (According to Livy, he had held a curule aedileship in absence in 205; which, if true and not due to confusion, must show special influence.)

46 MRR i, 322.

47 MRR i, 325. (Cf. p. 326, n. 7.) Livy xxxi, 49, 5 makes it clear that the board of ten on which Titus was already serving, far from being disbanded, was given a new task at the very time of the appointment of the commission for Venusia. It follows that Titus served on both simultaneously.

48 Livy xxxii, 7, 8 f.

49 Duly noted, in passing, by Niese, , Gesch. d. griech. u. mak. Staaten ii, 609Google Scholar.

50 Livy xxxii, 3.