Related Research Articles
This article concerns the period 49 BC – 40 BC.
This article concerns the period 59 BC – 50 BC.
The First Triumvirate was an informal political alliance among three prominent politicians in the late Roman Republic: Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus, Marcus Licinius Crassus, and Gaius Julius Caesar. The republican constitution had many veto points. In order to bypass constitutional obstacles and force through the political goals of the three men, they forged in secret an alliance where they promised to use their respective influence to support each other. The "triumvirate" was not a formal magistracy, nor did it achieve a lasting domination over state affairs.
Publius Clodius Pulcher was a populist Roman politician and street agitator during the time of the First Triumvirate. One of the most colourful personalities of his era, Clodius was descended from the aristocratic Claudia gens, one of Rome's oldest and noblest patrician families, but he contrived to be adopted by an obscure plebeian, so that he could be elected tribune of the plebs. During his term of office, he pushed through an ambitious legislative program, including a grain dole; but he is chiefly remembered for his long-running feuds with political opponents, particularly Cicero, whose writings offer antagonistic, detailed accounts and allegations concerning Clodius' political activities and scandalous lifestyle. Clodius was tried for the capital offence of sacrilege, following his intrusion on the women-only rites of the goddess Bona Dea, purportedly with the intention of seducing Caesar's wife Pompeia; his feud with Cicero led to Cicero's temporary exile; his feud with Milo ended in his own death at the hands of Milo's bodyguards.
Quintus Fufius Calenus was a Roman Republican politician and general. When Fufius was plebeian tribune in 61 BC he was an ally of Publius Clodius Pulcher during the Bona Dea affair. During his praetorship in 59 BC he supported Julius Caesar who was then consul. Fufius later served under Caesar at the close of the Gallic Wars and during the civil war that followed. For his services he was made consul in 47 BC. After Caesar's death in 44 BC, he supported Mark Antony against Cicero during the ensuing conflict in the senate. As an ally of Antony governing Cisalpine Gaul, he died of illness in 40 BC on the cusp of intervening in the Perusine War.
Roma Sub Rosa is a series of historical mystery novels by Steven Saylor set in ancient Rome and therefore populated by famous historic Roman citizens. The phrase "Roma Sub Rosa" means, in Latin, "Rome under the rose." If a matter was sub rosa, "under the rose," it meant that such matter was confidential.
Pro Caelio is a speech given on 4 April 56 BC, by the famed Roman orator Marcus Tullius Cicero in defence of Marcus Caelius Rufus, who had once been Cicero's pupil but more recently had become estranged from him. Cicero's reasons for defending Caelius are uncertain, but one motive may have been his hatred of Publius Clodius Pulcher, who two years earlier had passed a law which had forced Cicero into exile, and whose sister Cicero attacks mercilessly in this speech.
Marcus Caelius Rufus was an orator and politician in the late Roman Republic. He was born into a wealthy equestrian family from Interamnia Praetuttiorum, on the central east coast of Italy. He is best known for his prosecution of Gaius Antonius Hybrida in 59 BC. He was also known for his trial for public violence in March 56 BC, when Cicero defended him in the extant speech Pro Caelio, and as both recipient and author of some of the best-written letters in the ad Familiares corpus of Cicero's extant correspondence. He may be the Rufus named in the poems of Catullus.
The senatus consultum ultimum is the modern term given to resolutions of the Roman Senate lending its moral support for magistrates to use the full extent of their powers and ignore the laws to safeguard the state.
The "Pro Tito Annio Milone ad iudicem oratio" is a speech made by Marcus Tullius Cicero in 52 BC on behalf of his friend Titus Annius Milo. Milo was accused of murdering his political enemy Publius Clodius Pulcher on the Via Appia. Cicero wrote the speech after the hearing and so the authenticity of the speech is debated among scholars.
Publius Plautius Hypsaeus was a politician of the Roman Republic during the first century BCE.
Publius Servilius Isauricus was a Roman senator who served as consul in 48 BC together with Julius Caesar. He is generally regarded as a puppet of Caesar, having a long friendship with the Dictator.
Quintus Caecilius Metellus Nepos was an ancient Roman politician during the Late Republic. He was a son of Quintus Caecilius Metellus Nepos and served as tribune of the plebs in 62 BC, consul in 57 BC, and the governor of Hispania Citerior from 56–55 BC.
The political career of Marcus Tullius Cicero began in 76 BC with his election to the office of quaestor, and ended in 43 BC, when he was assassinated upon the orders of Mark Antony. Cicero, a Roman statesman, lawyer, political theorist, philosopher, and Roman constitutionalist, reached the height of Roman power, the Consulship, and played a critical role in the transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire. A contemporary of Julius Caesar, Cicero is widely considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists.
Leges Clodiae were a series of laws (plebiscites) passed by the Plebeian Council of the Roman Republic under the tribune Publius Clodius Pulcher in 58 BC. Clodius was a member of the patrician family ("gens") Claudius; the alternative spelling of his name is sometimes regarded as a political gesture. With the support of Julius Caesar, who held his first consulship in 59 BC, Clodius had himself adopted into a plebeian family in order to qualify for the office of tribune of the plebs, which was not open to patricians. Clodius was famously a bitter opponent of Cicero.
The gens Caecilia was a plebeian family at ancient Rome. Members of this gens are mentioned in history as early as the fifth century BC, but the first of the Caecilii who obtained the consulship was Lucius Caecilius Metellus Denter, in 284 BC. The Caecilii Metelli were one of the most powerful families of the late Republic, from the decades before the First Punic War down to the time of Augustus.
Publius Sestius was a Roman politician and governor in the 1st century BC.
Gaius Porcius Cato was a distant relative, probably a second cousin, of the more famous Marcus Porcius Cato, called Cato the Younger. This Cato was probably the son of Gaius Porcius Cato, the homonymous consul of 114 BC, being then the grandson of Marcus Porcius Cato Licinianus and thereby the great-grandson of the famous Cato the Censor, often called Cato the Elder.
Gaius Scribonius Curio was the son of Gaius Scribonius Curio, consul in 76 BC and censor in 61 BC. His political allegiances changed over the course of the 50s BC until his tribunate, when he sided with Julius Caesar after possibly receiving a massive bribe. During the civil war, he sided with Caesar and led Caesarian troops to Sicily and then to Africa, where he was killed in battle.
References
- ↑ John Leach, Pompey the Great, pp. 138–141; Cic.Q. F. II. 3. 2 ff.
- ↑ Cicero, Atticus, II 21. 3 ff.
- ↑ John Leach, Pompey the Great, p. 155.
- ↑ Asconius, Pro Milone, 53C
- ↑ Dio, 40.54.3
- ↑ Michele Carluccio (2002). Conza della Campania. Il parco archeologico Compsa. De Angelis. ISBN 978-88-86218-46-7.
