Quintus Fulvius Nobilior

Last updated

Quintus Fulvius Nobilior was a Roman consul who obtained the consulship in 153 BC. His father Marcus Fulvius Nobilior and his brother Marcus Fulvius Nobilior (consul 159 BC) were also consuls.

Contents

Nobilior and his father were patrons of the writer Quintus Ennius. [1]

Career

In 153 BC, Quintus Fulvius Nobilior was in charge of a 30.000 strong army to campaign in Spain, which was largely unsuccessful. [2] The Roman army was initially deployed against the oppidum of Segeda, whose Celtiberian inhabitants, the Belli, had been expanding its walls and attacking other nearby tribes. [2] Segeda was destroyed, but the Belli assembled an army under chieftain Carus, which ambushed the Roman army in a move compared to the Battle of Lake Trasimene, [3] inflicting heavy losses. [2] Moving west to the meseta, Nobilior laid siege to Numantia, an oppidum whose inhabitants were to give Rome trouble for years [4] and had sheltered the Belli when they fled their city. [2] The Roman army faced difficult conditions in the winter and had to withdraw. Nobilior was replaced as consul in 152 BC by Marcus Claudius Marcellus.

He was censor with Appius Claudius Pulcher, probably in 136 BC. [5]

The Roman camp at Renieblas in Spain may have been Q. Fulvius Nobilior's winter quarters. [6]

Cultural impact

Nobilior was designated consul in 154 BC, however his appointment could not come into effect until the Ides of March, the day for settling debts that marked the end of the calendar year. To overcome this obstacle, and recognizing the need for immediate action, the Roman Senate decreed January 1 as the new beginning to the civil year.

Related Research Articles

This article concerns the period 139 BC – 130 BC.

This article concerns the period 219 BC – 210 BC.

Year 212 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Flaccus and Pulcher. The denomination 212 BC for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Samnite Wars</span> 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.

The gens Fulvia, originally Foulvia, was one of the most illustrious plebeian families at ancient Rome. Members of this gens first came to prominence during the middle Republic; the first to attain the consulship was Lucius Fulvius Curvus in 322 BC. From that time, the Fulvii were active in the politics of the Roman state, and gained a reputation for excellent military leaders.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Celtiberians</span> Ancient Celtic peoples of the Iberian Peninsula

The Celtiberians were a group of Celts and Celticized peoples inhabiting an area in the central-northeastern Iberian Peninsula during the final centuries BCE. They were explicitly mentioned as being Celts by several classic authors. These tribes spoke the Celtiberian language and wrote it by adapting the Iberian alphabet, in the form of the Celtiberian script. The numerous inscriptions that have been discovered, some of them extensive, have allowed scholars to classify the Celtiberian language as a Celtic language, one of the Hispano-Celtic languages that were spoken in pre-Roman and early Roman Iberia. Archaeologically, many elements link Celtiberians with Celts in Central Europe, but also show large differences with both the Hallstatt culture and La Tène culture.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marcus Aemilius Lepidus (consul 187 BC)</span> 2nd-century BC Roman consul

Marcus Aemilius Lepidus was a Roman consul, Pontifex Maximus, Censor and Princeps Senatus. A scion of the ancient Patrician gens Aemilia, he was most likely the son of Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, with his brothers being Lucius and Quintus.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Numantia</span> Ancient Celtiberian settlement

Numantia is an ancient Celtiberian settlement, whose remains are located on a hill known as Cerro de la Muela in the current municipality of Garray (Soria), Spain.

Appius Claudius Pulcher was a Roman general and politician of the 3rd century BC, active in the Second Punic War.

Marcus Fulvius Nobilior was a Roman general.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Segeda</span>

Segeda is an ancient settlement, between today's Belmonte de Gracián and Mara in the province of Zaragoza, Aragon, Spain. Originally it was a Celtiberian town, whose inhabitants, the Belli, gave it the name Sekeida or Sekeiza.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Battle of Capua</span>

The First Battle of Capua was fought in 212 BC between Hannibal and two Roman consular armies. The Roman force was led by two consuls, Quintus Fulvius Flaccus and Appius Claudius Pulcher. The Roman force was defeated, but managed to escape. Hannibal temporarily managed to raise the siege of Capua. A tactical Carthaginian victory, it ultimately did not help the Capuans.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marcus Claudius Marcellus (consul 166 BC)</span> Roman consul

Marcus Claudius Marcellus was Roman consul for the years 166 BC, for 155 BC, and for 152 BC.

The Second Celtiberian War was one of the three major rebellions by the Celtiberians against the presence of the Romans in Hispania.

The First Celtiberian War and Second Celtiberian War were two of the three major rebellions by the Celtiberians against the presence of the Romans in Hispania.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Quintus Caecilius Metellus (consul 206 BC)</span> Roman consul (250 BC - 175 BC)

Quintus Caecilius Metellus was a pontiff in 216 BC, aedile of the plebeians in 209 BC, curule aedile in 208 BC, magister equitum in 207 BC, consul in 206 BC, dictator in 205 BC, proconsul of Bruttium in 204 BC, and an ambassador at the court of Philip V of Macedon in 185 BC.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Battle of Canusium</span>

The Battle of Canusium also known as the Battle of Asculum was a three-day engagement between the forces of Rome and Carthage. It took place in Apulia during the spring of 209 BC, the tenth year of the Second Punic War. A larger Roman offensive, of which it was a part, aimed to subjugate and to punish cities and tribes that had abandoned the alliance with Rome after the Battle of Cannae, and to narrow the base of the Carthaginian leader, Hannibal, in southern Italy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Belli</span>

The Belli, also designated Beli or Belaiscos were an ancient pre-Roman Celtic Celtiberian people who lived in the modern Spanish province of Zaragoza from the 3rd Century BC.

This section of the timeline of Hispania concerns Spanish and Portuguese history events from the Carthaginian conquests to before the barbarian invasions.

References

  1. Cicero, Brutus , 20
  2. 1 2 3 4 Goldsworthy, Adrian Keith. (2004). In the name of Rome : the men who won the Roman Empire. London: Phoenix. pp. Chapter 4. ISBN   0-7538-1789-6. OCLC   61301256.
  3. Fernando Quesada Sanz, Not so different: individual fighting techniques and small unit tactics of Roman and Iberian armies within the framework of warfare in the Hellenistic Age. Pallas 70 (2006), pp. 245-263.
  4. History of Rome: The Spanish Wars 45-48 Appian
  5. Fasti Capitolini
  6. Lawrence Keppie, The Making of the Roman Army: From Republic to Empire, p. 46.