Gaius Caninius Rebilus

Gaius Caninius Rebilus was a politician and general in the final stages of the Roman Republic. The dates of his life are not known, the highest office he achieved was the suffect consulate in 45 BC. Chr.

career

The plebeian gens of the Caninii has been around since the 2nd century BC. Chr. Attested, without that special achievements of their relatives are handed down. Rebilus himself is mentioned for the first time as a legate in the Gallic War of Gaius Iulius Caesar , in the fight against Vercingetorix in 52 BC. BC, then more often in the year 51. Later he was active in a diplomatic mission trying to find a compromise with Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus . Judging by the course of his further career , he could have held the praetur in 48 . He then served again as a general in the war in Africa and Spain, meanwhile 46 as proconsul of the province of Africa . He was thus one of the typical representatives of the political class of the late republic who had joined the later dictator.

consulate

So it is not his merits that set Rebilus apart from his peers, but a cruel joke that Caesar allowed himself with the institutions of the state. For the year 45 he had served as sole consul , at times also as dictator , but then had two suffect consuls elected in October . One of them, Quintus Fabius Maximus , died unexpectedly at noon on December 31st. Instead of ending the year with a single consul, Caesar had Caninus, another suffect consul, elected for the last eleven hours of the year , disregarding jurisdiction and at a non-regular popular assembly ( Comitia ).

Marcus Tullius Cicero described this procedure to a friend and attached bitter remarks to it. No one had breakfast under the newly elected consulate, but he was also so vigilant that nothing bad had happened during his entire term of office; As a consul he never slept. The episode may seem ridiculous to his correspondent, but when he sees it, he cannot hold back tears. It was also reported in later sources, not only by Plutarch , but also by the Historia Augusta and Macrobius .

literature

• DR Shackleton Bailey : Cicero. Epistulae ad familiares . Vol. 2 (47-43 bC). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1977, ISBN 0-521-21151-4 , text p. 127 f., Commentary p. 434 f. (Cambridge classical text and commentaries 17).
• Wolfgang Will : Caninius 5th In: The New Pauly (DNP). Volume 2, Metzler, Stuttgart 1997, ISBN 3-476-01472-X , Sp. 963.
• Wolfgang Will : Julius Caesar. A balance sheet . Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1992, ISBN 3-17-009978-7 , p. 205.
• Friedrich Münzer : Caninius 9 . In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume III, 2, Stuttgart 1899, Col. 1478 f.

Remarks

1. ↑ Caesar, De bello Gallico 7,83,3; 90.6; 8, 24-39; 44.
2. ^ Caesar, De bello civili 1, 26, 3–5.
3. ↑ Bellum Africum 86.3; 93.3; Bellum Hispaniense 35.1.
4. ↑ See for example Ronald Syme : The Roman Revolution . Revised German new edition. Klett, Stuttgart 2003, ISBN 3-608-94029-4 , pp. 73 f.
5. ↑ Epistulae ad familiares 7, 30.1.
6. ↑ Plutarch, Caesar 58; Historia Augusta, Thirty Tyrants 8.2; Macrobius, Saturnalia 2,3,6. For a single day, October 31, 69 AD, Rosius Regulus was also consul.