Lucius Volumnius Flamma Violens

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Lucius Volumnius Flamma Violens
Bornc. 340 BC
Diedc. 273 BC
Occupationsoldier and consul of the Roman Republic
Spouse(s) Verginia, daughter of Aulus Verginius

Lucius Volumnius Flamma Violens was a consul of the Roman Republic, a novus homo ("new man") who was the first consul to come from his plebeian gens . Volumnius served as consul twice, in 307 BC and 296 BC, both times in partnership with the patrician Appius Claudius Caecus. He took an active role in leading Roman forces during the Third Samnite War.

Contents

Background

According to Roman tradition, membership of the Roman Senate, the city's magistracies, the offices of consul and various religious positions were restricted to patricians. Volumnius was a beneficiary of the Conflict of the Orders, when, during a 200-year struggle, plebeians gradually gained political equality and the right to hold all such offices. [1] The Lex Licinia Sextia of 367 BC had restored the consulship and sought to reserve one of the two consular offices for a plebeian, but in practice this failed to happen until the first election of Volumnius in 307. [1] The Conflict of the Orders was finally resolved in 287 BC, when plebeians gained political equality. [1]

Career

A new man, Volumnius was the first member of his family to become a consul. John Briscoe says of him "The first plebeian consul known to have presided was L. Volumnius Flamma Violens in 296 [ sic ]." [2] However, Mario Torelli says "...the famous P [ sic ] Volumnius Flamma Violens, cos. 307 and 296 BC, could be among the (plebeian) descendants of P. Volumnius Amintinus Gallus, cos. 461." [3]

Volumnius served as consul twice, in 307 BC and 296 BC, both times in partnership with the patrician Appius Claudius Caecus.

The Third Samnite War broke out in 298 BC. By the end of its second campaign, the Samnites, led by Gellius Egnatius, seemed defeated, but the next year Egnatius formed an alliance against Rome with Etruria. This had the effect of withdrawing Roman troops from Samnium, which according to Livy's Ab Urbe condita had been assigned to Volumnius as his sphere of action. [4] In 296, a combined Etruscan and Samnite army invaded Campania, but was defeated by the combined armies of Volumnius and Claudius, in a battle near the River Volturnus. [5]

Wife

Volumnius married Verginia, the daughter of Aulus Verginius, a patrician. She is one of the one hundred and six subjects of Giovanni Boccaccio's On Famous Women (De mulieribus claris, 1362 AD). [6] In about 295 BC, the patrician matronae insulted Verginia by forbidding her access to the ceremony at the shrine of Pudicitia Patricia honouring the female virtue of pudicitia (modesty, or sexual virtue), on account of her having married a plebeian. [7] As a result, she erected an altar in her own house to Plebeia Pudicitia. Boccaccio says: "Beginning at that time, and for long thereafter, the temple of Plebeia Pudicitia was equal in sanctity to the altar of the patricians, since no one could offer a sacrifice in it unless she were of singular chastity and had had only one husband..." [6]

Related Research Articles

Pudicitia

Pudicitia was a central concept in ancient Roman sexual ethics. The word is derived from the more general pudor, the sense of shame that regulated an individual's behavior as socially acceptable. Pudicitia was most often a defining characteristic of women, but men who failed to conform to masculine sexual norms were said to exhibit feminizing impudicitia, sexual shamelessness. The virtue was personified by the Roman goddess Pudicitia, whose Greek equivalent was Aidos.

Samnite Wars Three wars between the Roman Republic and the Samnites in Central Italy, 343–290 BC

The First, Second, and Third Samnite Wars were fought between the Roman Republic and the Samnites, who lived on a stretch of the Apennine Mountains south of Rome and north of the Lucanian tribe.

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Claudia gens Ancient Roman family

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Manius Curius Dentatus Roman general and statesman

Manius Curius Dentatus was a Roman general and statesman noted for ending the Samnite War and for his military exploits during the Pyrrhic War. According to Pliny, he was born with teeth, thus earning the surname Dentatus, "toothed."

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Appius Claudius Crassus InregillensisSabinus was a Roman senator during the early Republic, most notable as the leading member of the ten-man board which drew up the Twelve Tables of Roman law around 451 BC. He is also probably identical with the Appius Claudius who was consul in 471 BC.

Gellius Egnatius was the leader of the Varriani, a leading clan of the Samnites during the Third Samnite War, which broke out in 298 BC. By the end of the second campaign the Samnites appeared completely defeated, however in the following year Gellius Egnatius marched into Etruria, and roused the Etruscans to a close co-operation against Rome. This had the effect of withdrawing Roman troops from Samnium for a period of time; but the forces of the confederates were defeated by the combined armies of consuls Lucius Volumnius Flamma Violens and Appius Claudius Caecus.

Verginia (wife of Lucius Volumnius Flamma)

Verginia, sometimes spelled Virginia, was the daughter of Aulus Verginius, a Roman patrician. Her example of modesty and virtue in the face of adversity became famous in antiquity, and during the Middle Ages, she was celebrated as one of Boccaccio's Famous Women.

Appius is a Latin praenomen, or personal name, usually abbreviated Ap. or sometimes App., and best known as a result of its extensive use by the patrician gens Claudia. The feminine form is Appia. The praenomen also gave rise to the patronymic gens Appia.

The gens Verginia or Virginia was a prominent family at ancient Rome, which from an early period was divided into patrician and plebeian branches. The gens was of great antiquity, and frequently filled the highest honors of the state during the early years of the Republic. The first of the family who obtained the consulship was Opiter Verginius Tricostus in 502 BC, the seventh year of the Republic. The plebeian members of the family were also numbered amongst the early tribunes of the people.

Gaius Junius Bubulcus Brutus was a Roman general and statesman, he was elected consul of the Roman Republic thrice, he was also appointed dictator or magister equitum thrice, and censor in 307 BC. In 311, he made a vow to the goddess Salus that he went on to fulfill, becoming the first plebeian to build a temple. The temple was one of the first dedicated to an abstract deity, and Junius was one of the first generals to vow a temple and then oversee its establishment through the construction and dedication process.

The Temple of Pudicitia Plebeia was an ancient Roman temple on the Quirinal Hill, along the Vicus Longus, on what is now via Nazionale. It was dedicated to 'plebeian chastity' and built in 296 BC by Virginia, wife of the future consul Lucius Volumnius, in a section of her own house.

Publius Sempronius Sophus was a Roman politician and general who achieved the honors of being both consul and censor in his political career, as well as renown for being a talented and well respected jurist.

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According to Roman tradition, it was a Decemvirate that drew up the Twelve Tables of Roman law.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Kurt Raaflaub, ed., Social Struggles in Archaic Rome: New Perspectives on the Conflict of the Orders (University of California Press, 1986)
  2. Book review by John Briscoe in The Journal of Roman Studies, vol. 62 (1972), pp. 187–188
  3. Torelli, Mario, Studies in the Romanization of Italy, ed. and trans. Helena Fracchia and Maurizio Gualtieri (University of Alberta Press, 1995)
  4. Livy's History, Book X, 17
  5. Livy's History, Book X, 20 Archived 5 March 2013 at the Wayback Machine at mcadams.posc.mu.edu (accessed 30 November 2007)
  6. 1 2 Boccaccio, Giovanni, Concerning Famous Women, translated by Guido A. Guarino (Rutgers University Press, 1963) pp. 137–138 (Library of Congress Catalogue Card Number 63-18945)
  7. Livy's History, Book X, 23
Political offices
Preceded by Consul of the Roman Republic
307 BC
with Appius Claudius Caecus
Succeeded by
Preceded by Consul of the Roman Republic
296 BC
with Appius Claudius Caecus II
Succeeded by