Gaius Calpurnius Piso (Consul 67 BC)

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Gaius Calpurnius Piso († shortly after 59 BC) was a politician of the outgoing Roman Republic and 67 BC. Chr. Consul .

Life

Gaius Calpurnius Piso, rated by Marcus Tullius Cicero as a gifted speaker, came from the plebeian family of the Calpurnier . 76 BC He acted as a judge in the trial of the actor Quintus Roscius Gallus . About 71 BC BC, perhaps a year earlier, he was praetor . In an inheritance lawsuit, he represented 69 or 68 BC. The interests of Sextus Aebutius against the Aulus Caecina defended by Cicero .

67 BC Piso took up his consulate, where he received Manius Acilius Glabrio as co-consul. He had previously been able to avert charges that he only obtained his election through bribery. He belonged to the conservative circles of the Roman high aristocracy and was a staunch optimate . In agreement with his party friends, he led the opposition in the Senate to the legislative proposal by the tribune Aulus Gabinius to give the general Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus extraordinary powers to combat pirates . This resistance was also extremely dangerous for him personally. The law ( Lex Gabinia ) went through anyway. When Piso began to sabotage the armor, Gabinius wanted to have him deposed as consul, which Pompey prevented.

In his consulate, Piso also fought - like many other conservative nobiles - several laws proposed by the tribune Gaius Cornelius , which aimed to put an end to abuses carried out in particular by the Optimates. The Senate opposed, among other things, the very harsh penalties demanded by Cornelius for election bribery. On the initiative of the senators, Piso and his colleague Glabrio introduced a similar but significantly toned law (Lex Calpurnia de ambitu) , which would expel people convicted of ambitus from the Senate, prohibit the exercise of public office and fines provided. The law was unconstitutional and passed quickly before the next elections. Disgruntled by this procedure, the People's Tribune Cornelius wanted to reassert the old, but no longer observed, provision that not the Senate, but only the People's Assembly was entitled to allow individuals to dispense laws. Now the tribune Publius Servilius Globulus entered into an alliance with the Senate and forbade the Herald to read out the rogation in the popular assembly. Cornelius then read out his proposed law himself. When Piso pointed out the inadmissibility of this course of action, he almost died in rioting caused by it, so that Cornelius dissolved the meeting.

66-65 BC Piso stood before the provinces of Gallia Narbonensis and Gallia cisalpina as proconsul and put down an uprising of the Allobrogans . Maybe he stayed 64 BC. BC governor of Gallia cisalpina. Probably 63 BC BC Cicero was the successful defender of Pisus when, at the instigation of Gaius Iulius Caesar , he was brought to justice on charges of having plundered his province and unjustly sentenced a Transpadan to death. Piso now wanted to retaliate by asking Cicero - albeit in vain - to accuse Caesar as a co-conspirator of Lucius Sergius Catiline . He was present at the deliberations on the punishment of the Catilinarians and declared himself in agreement with Cicero's measures against these subversives. 59 BC He acted as a mediator between Caesar and Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus . Soon afterwards, death overtook him, because from now on he disappears from the sources.

literature

Remarks

  1. ↑ Cicero, Brutus 239.
  2. ↑ Cicero, Pro Q. Roscio comoedo 7 and 18.
  3. ↑ Valerius Maximus 7, 7, 5. On the dating cf. T. Robert S. Broughton : The Magistrates Of The Roman Republic. Volume 3: Supplement (= Philological Monographs. Vol. 15, Part 3). Scholars Press, Atlanta GA 1986, ISBN 0-89130-811-3 , p. 45.
  4. ↑ Cicero, Pro A. Caecina 34ff.
  5. ↑ Cassius Dio 36, 12, 1; CIL 9,390 ; among others
  6. ^ Cassius Dio 36, 38, 3.
  7. ↑ Cassius Dio 36, 24, 3; Plutarch , Pompey 25, 4.
  8. ↑ Plutarch, Pompey 27, 2; Cassius Dio 36, 37, 2.
  9. ↑ Cassius Dio 36, 38, 1-36, 39, 3; Asconius Pedianus , Commentary on Cicero, Pro Cornelio , p. 50f .; 61; 67; among others
  10. ↑ Cassius Dio 36, 37, 2; Cicero, Epistulae ad Atticum 1, 1, 2 and 1, 13, 2.
  11. ↑ See T. Robert S. Broughton: The Magistrates Of The Roman Republic. Volume 3: Supplement (= Philological Monographs. Vol. 15, Part 3). Scholars Press, Atlanta GA 1986, ISBN 0-89130-811-3 , p. 45.
  12. ^ Sallust , De coniuratione Catilinae 49, 2; Cicero, Pro L. Valerio Flacco 98.
  13. ^ Sallust, De coniuratione Catilinae 49, 2; Plutarch, Caesar 7, 2.
  14. ↑ Cicero, Epistulae ad Atticum 12, 21, 1; In M. Antonium oratio Philippica 2, 12.
  15. ^ Cicero, Epistulae ad Atticum 1, 17, 11.
personal data
SURNAME Calpurnius Piso, Gaius
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Piso, Gaius Calpurnius
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Roman consul 67 BC Chr.
DATE OF BIRTH 2nd century BC Chr.
DATE OF DEATH after 59 BC Chr.