Megabocchus (died 53 BC) was a friend and contemporary of Publius Crassus, son of the triumvir Marcus Crassus. He died at the Battle of Carrhae.
Plutarch gives the name as Μεγάβαγχος. The Latin spelling varies. His father may have been the Gaius Megabocchus mentioned by Cicero [1] as condemned for extortion in Sardinia. The son is also named by Cicero in a letter to Atticus [2] dated April 59 BC, during Julius Caesar's first consulship. Megabocchus is there connected with an unsuccessful candidate for the year's other consular office who was a close associate of the elder Crassus. Although the context is difficult, Megabocchus appears to be cast as the ringleader of a bunch of party-boys–turned–agitators. [3]
During the Battle of Carrhae, Megabocchus is among those who ride with young Crassus on a last desperate cavalry foray. Plutarch says he was about Publius's age, distinguished for his courage and strength. After sustaining heavy casualties, the Romans and their Gallic auxiliaries retreat to a sand dune, where hope is soon lost under the constant barrage of Parthian arrows. Wounded and with his sword-arm incapacitated, Crassus orders his shield-bearer to take his life. Megabocchus, along with most of the other officers, commits suicide rather than yield to the enemy. [4]
Marcus Tullius Cicero was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher, writer and Academic skeptic, who tried to uphold optimate principles during the political crises that led to the establishment of the Roman Empire. His extensive writings include treatises on rhetoric, philosophy and politics. He is considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists and the innovator of what became known as Ciceronian rhetoric. Cicero was educated in Rome and in Greece. He came from a wealthy municipal family of the Roman equestrian order, and served as consul in 63 BC.
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The Battle of Carrhae was fought in 53 BC between the Roman Republic and the Parthian Empire near the ancient town of Carrhae. An invading force of seven legions of Roman heavy infantry under Marcus Licinius Crassus was lured into the desert and decisively defeated by a mixed cavalry army of heavy cataphracts and light horse archers led by the Parthian general Surena. On such flat terrain, the Legion proved to have no viable tactics against the highly-mobile Parthian horsemen, and the slow and vulnerable Roman formations were surrounded, exhausted by constant attacks, and eventually crushed. Crassus was killed along with the majority of his army. It is commonly seen as one of the earliest and most important battles between the Roman and Parthian Empires and one of the most crushing defeats in Roman history. According to the poet Ovid in Book 6 of his poem Fasti, the battle occurred on the 9th day of June.
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Appius Claudius Pulcher was a Roman patrician, politician and general in the first century BC. He was consul of the Roman Republic in 54 BC. He was an expert in Roman law and antiquities, especially the esoteric lore of the augural college of which he was a controversial member. He was head of the senior line of the most powerful family of the patrician Claudii. The Claudii were one of the five leading families which had dominated Roman social and political life from the earliest years of the republic. He is best known as the recipient of 13 of the extant letters in Cicero's ad Familiares corpus, which date from 53 to 50 BC. They do not include any of Appius' replies to Cicero. He is also well known for being the older brother of the infamous Clodius and Clodia.
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Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius Scipio, often referred to as Metellus Scipio, was a Roman senator and military commander. During the civil war between Julius Caesar and the senatorial faction led by Pompey, he was a staunch supporter of the latter. He led troops against Caesar's forces, mainly in the battles of Pharsalus and Thapsus, where he was defeated. He later committed suicide. Ronald Syme called him "the last Scipio of any consequence in Roman history."
Publius Licinius Crassus was one of two sons of Marcus Licinius Crassus, the so-called "triumvir", and Tertulla, daughter of Marcus Terentius Varro Lucullus. He belonged to the last generation of Roman nobiles who came of age and began a political career before the collapse of the Republic. His peers included Marcus Antonius, Marcus Junius Brutus, Decimus Junius Brutus Albinus, the poet Gaius Valerius Catullus, and the historian Gaius Sallustius Crispus.
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Publius Licinius Crassus Dives was a Roman senator during the time of the First Triumvirate in the late Republic. He was the judge who examined in 59 BC the controversial affair of Lucius Vettius, who was supposedly involved in a conspiracy to assassinate the "triumvir" Pompey. Broughton supposed, on basis of this, that Dives had been a plebeian aedile in the previous year. Dives was a praetor in 57 BC, and, along with his other colleagues in office, supported the recall of the ex-consul Cicero from exile. He appears to have squandered a substantial amount of his wealth, causing Cicero to comment, in 59 BC, that his surname Dives was no longer appropriate for him. Valerius Maximus reported that Crassus went bankrupt and that the name "Dives" became a provocative taunt; this must have happened after his term as praetor.