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Ten Tribunes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2012

Ronald Syme
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Extract

Gabinius, tribune of the plebs in 67, procured for Pompeius the great command against the Pirates, defying the ‘principes’ and incurring the bitter resentment of the Optimates. When the Imperator wanted to have Gabinius as one of his legates, men of ill will duly brought up impediments. Cicero rebukes them in the oration for the Lex Manilia the year after. Their conduct, he says, is an affront to Pompeius. Other commanders who by contrast went out to rob the provinces have taken with them any legates they liked—‘cum ceteri ad expilandos socios diripiendasque provincias quos voluerunt legatos eduxerint’. It is also an affront to Gabinius, whose law has ordained ‘salus ac dignitas’ for Rome and the whole world. Nor can any objection hold against Gabinius. Cicero goes on to name four senators who had employment abroad as legates in the year following their tribunates— ‘C. Falcidius, Q. Metellus, Q. Caelius Latinianus, Cn. Lentulus, quos omnis honoris causa nomino’.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Roman Studies , Volume 53 , Issue 1-2 , November 1963 , pp. 55 - 60
Copyright
Copyright © Ronald Syme 1963. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

1 De imperio Cn. Pompei 58.

2 Thanks to Broughton's MRR, it is possible in this paper to dispense with most of the annotation about familiar persons and known dates.

3 Famous through the Lex Falcidia of 41 B.C., the nomen happens to be extremely rare: no specimen in the central-Italian volumes of CIL, except for IX, 4719 (Reate).

4 CIL I2, 1441 = ILS 6205. Similarly, the Caelius, Antonian Q. (Phil. XIII, 3; 26)Google Scholar is presumably a Coelius. For Coelii at Tusculum, observe M. Coelius Vinicianus (I2, 781 = ILS 883).

5 To be deduced from Coelia Polla, described as daughter of a legate (Inschr. von Magnesia (1900), 148). He is not in MRR.

6 Creticus was conjectured by Münzer, P-W III, 1210. In MRR II, 468 Creticus, Celer or Nepos are admitted as possible: but Nepos (tr. pl. 62) must be ruled out.

7 For Clodianus, as a plebeian by birth, Münzer, P-W IV, 1380; Cichorius, C., Römische Studien (1922), 147.Google Scholar Registering the tribune as Clodianus, Broughton adds the name of Cn. Lentulus Marcellinus (cos. 56), ‘if the latter was really a plebeian’ (MRR II, 469). Moreover, there is a chance that Clodianus was by birth one of the patrician Claudii, cf. Sallust, , Hist. IV, 1Google Scholar: ‘at Cn. Lentulus patriciae gentis, collega eius cui cognomentum Clodiano fuit, perincertum stolidior an vanior.’

8 In Vatinium 27.

9 MRR II, 147 ff.

10 Sydenham, E. A., The Coinage of the Roman Republic (1952), no. 604.Google Scholar

11 Sydenham, o.c, no. 941 ff.

12 Asconius 4; Plutarch, Cicero 41; Macrobius II, 3, 3. And his son is called Lentulus (Ad Att. XII, 28, 3; 30, 1). The person who adopted Dolabella is identified as Cn. Lentulus Vatia (Ad Q.fr. II, 3, 5) by Shackleton Bailey, D. R., CQ 2 x (1960), 258 f.Google Scholar That scholar suggests that he is a patrician Lentulus adopted by a (plebeian) Servilius Vatia. The nomenclature would indicate the reverse process. However that may be, Cn. Lentulus Vatia might still be claimed a plebeian. And there may be other plebeian Lentuli, possibly P. Cornelius (tr.pl. 51).

13 Dio XXXIX, 17, 2.

14 Not everything is clear about adoption, and ‘testamentary adoption’, in this age. Fresh investigation is called for. Strange things could happen, according to convenience or ambition among the nobiles. Thus the Scipio whom Metellus Pius adopted (by testament, according to Dio XL, 51, 3) becomes a plebeian, for he is tribune in 60 or 59; yet he is an interrex in 53 (CIL I2, 2663 c).

15 CIL VI, 3826 = ILS 46.

16 Macrobius 1, 9, 14.

17 Velleius 11, 43, 1.

18 For the importance of the fact, Taylor, L. R., CP XXXVI (1941), 117Google Scholar; AJP LXIII (1942), 403.

19 Livy XXXIII, 42, 1.

20 De har. resp. 21.

21 The notion that Marcellinus was plebeian tends to be strenuously denied, e.g. Münzer, P-W IV, 1390. To be sure, Sulla, who favoured patricians, may have thrown open to them the college of septemviri epulonum. That is not beyond belief. The earliest patrician member on record is Ap. Claudius Pulcher (cos. 38), cf. CIL X, 1423 (Herculaneum).

22 Suetonius, Diuus Julius 5.

23 Taylor, L. R., CP XXXVI (1941), 120Google Scholar, followed in MRR II, 125. The previous year is not perhaps utterly excluded—and Gelzer, M. retains it (Caesar 6 (1960), 25).Google Scholar

24 L. R. Taylor, o.c. (n. 23), 122, cf. MRR II, 132. Supported by Syme, R., CP L (1955), 131Google Scholar and now accepted by Gelzer, M., Caesar 6 (1960), 28.Google Scholar

25 Compare the clear and convincing argument of Badian, E., JRS XLIX (1959), 81 ff.Google Scholar

26 CIL 12, 744 = ILS 5800: ‘L. Vo[1]ca [cius……‥]/cur. viar./e lege Visellia de conl. sen[t.]/Cn. Corneli, Q. Marci, L. Hostil[i]/C. Antoni, C. Fundani, C. Popili/M. Valeri, C. Anti, Q. Caecili/’ etc.

27 CIL 12, 589 = ILS 38.

28 Brief selection can suffice. For 72, Carcopino, J., Histoire romaine II (1936), 529.Google Scholar For 71, the notes on CIL I2, 589; Dessau on ILS 38; Riccobono, , FIR I, 11.Google Scholar For 70, Last, H. M., CAH IX (1932), 896Google Scholar; A. Degrassi, ILLRP 465a (on the Lex Visellia). The case for 68 is quietly stated by L. R. Taylor, o.c. (n. 23), 121; and, in more detail, see MRR II, 130.

29 The involved statement in CAH IX, 896 appears to admit 73, or 70 or 69. Carcopino proposes 72 (o.c. 529). For 70, MRR II, 130, to which date Gelzer now comes round (Caesar 6 (1960), 26).

30 Ad Att. I, 18, 6.

31 The clue is furnished by Dio XXXVIII, 5, 1 f. Compare Gabba, E., La Parola del Passato XIII (1950), 66 ff.Google Scholar; Smith, R. E., CQ 2 VII (1957), 82 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

32 Florus 1, 41, 9; Appian, Mithr. 95. cf. R. E. Smith, o.c. (n. 31), 85. This is satisfactory. There is, however, no reason to identify the legate in the Pirate War with A. Plautius, praetor in 51, as is assumed by Münzer (P-W XXI, 7 ff.) and in MRR II, 149. One ought not to leave out of the reckoning ‘C. Plotius, vir primarius, qui legatus in Asia fuerat’ (Pro Flacco 50).

33 In Verrem 1, 30.

34 De legibus 111, 22; Caesar, , BC I, 7, 3Google Scholar; Livy, Per. 89.

35 Dio XXXVI, 2, 2; cf. 15, 1.

36 Plutarch, Lucullus 33, cf. Sallust, , Hist. IV, 71.Google Scholar

37 Sallust, , Hist. III, 48, 11.Google Scholar

38 So MRR II, 132 (with a query).

39 Florus 1, 41, 9; Appian, Mithr. 95 (Marcellinus in 67, cf. SIG 3 750: Cyrene); Dio XXXVI, 54, 2 ff. (later under Pompeius in 66, in Albania).

40 Münzer suggested that this tribune and C. Fundanius, quaestor c. 100 (Sydenham, o.c. (n. 10), no. 584 f.), and C. Fundanius, C.f., attested as a senator in 81 (OGIS 441, 1. 20 f.) might all be one person (P-W VII, 291). It is clearly only the latter two who are to be amalgamated—to produce the father-in-law of Varro.

41 Sallust, , Hist. IV, 55.Google Scholar

42 Gellius II, 24, 13; Macrobius 111, 17, 13. Further to be identified as the candidate for office, ‘Antius petitor’ in Catullus 44, 11, as is clear from the context—‘Sestianus dum volo esse conviva’. But the senator Antius in Ad Att. IV, 17, 4 is perhaps an Ateius, viz. C. Ateius Capito, cf. Shackleton Bailey, D. R., Towards a Text of Cicero, AD ATTICUM (1960), 21.Google Scholar There was an Antius among the proscribed (Appian, BC IV, 40, 167), also a Restio (43, 181): the former might really be an Antistius. The son of the tribune of 68 may be discovered in C. Antius C.f. Restio, monetalis c. 46 (Sydenham, o.c. (n. 10), no. 970 ff.).

43 Livy, Per. 98.

44 Frontinus, , Strat. II, 4, 7.Google Scholar

45 In Verrem I, 39.

48 The Perusine ‘patria’ is given unequivocally by Propertius 1, 22, 3, addressed to Tullus, the nephew of the consul of 33. cf. Rom. Rev. (1939), 466; JRS XXXIX (1949), 18. No awareness is betrayed in the recent articles on the Volcacii, P-W IXA, 741 ff.

49 Pro Plancio 51. For the importance of the aedileship, De off. 11, 57.

50 In Verrem 1, 30 (M. Crepereius, L. Cassius, Cn. Tremellius).

51 Pliny, NH VIII, 144.Google Scholar Cascellius was a senator by 73 (SIG 3 747).

52 Pliny, NH VII, 181Google Scholar (in a list of strange deceases): late-Republican in date.

53 Asconius 65 (in reference to an incident about the year 81). Perhaps identical with the knight Volcacius, , In Verrem II, 2, 58.Google Scholar

54 CIL I2, 1442 = ILS 6206.

55 BSR Papers XIV (1938), 16 f.; 23 f.