Gaius Fannius (Consul 122 BC)

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Gaius Fannius (* probably around 170 BC; † after 122 BC) was a politician and speaker of the Roman Republic who came from the plebeian family of the Fannier . 122 BC He held the consulate . In classical studies it is disputed whether he is identical with the Roman annalist of the same name, who also lived in the Gracchian period , or whether the latter is a different personality from him.

Life

The well-known Roman orator Marcus Tullius Cicero is thanked for a number of the already sparse known information about the vita of Gaius Fannius. In his beginning in 46 BC, Cicero distinguished Two different dialogues were written by Brutus in the second half of the 2nd century BC. Living men of that name, one of whom was the consul from 122 BC. And speaker, son of a Gaius (C. Fannius C. f.) And the other, son-in-law of the consul Gaius Laelius and historian, son of a Marcus (C. Fannius M. f.) . Titus Pomponius Atticus contradicted this view of his friend and correspondence partner Cicero, who, however, in turn, as from a passage in a letter from June 45 BC. Chr. Emerges from his correspondence with Atticus, stuck to his opinion by referring to the information of an epitome of the historical work of Fannius, which the later Caesar murderer Marcus Junius Brutus had made.

The ancient historian Friedrich Münzer argued in an influential work in 1920 that although there were two different C. Fannii in the Gracchen era , the consul was from 122 BC. Was the son of a Marcus (and not, as Cicero assumed in Brutus , the son of a Gaius) and to be equated with both the orator and the annalist. Although among other things an inscription from Crete known since 1942 also proves the existence of a roughly simultaneous Gaius Fannius, the son of a Gaius and 113 BC He was one of the commissioners of the Roman Senate, wrote and writes most of the research following Münzer, most of the biographical notes and all notes relating to a writer to the consul of 122 BC. BC, Gaius Fannius, son of Marcus, to.

According to this, Gaius Fannius visited on the advice of the consul of 140 BC. Chr., Gaius Laelius, with whose younger daughter Laelia he was married, the lectures of the stoic philosopher Panaitios of Rhodes . In the Third Punic War he rose in 146 BC. BC during the storming of Carthage with Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus as the first to build the walls of the opposing capital. With the assistance of Publius Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus Africanus he was founded around 142 BC. Chr. Tribune . 141 BC He took part in the war of the Romans against the important leader of the Lusitan tribe , Viriathus , on the Iberian Peninsula in the position of a military tribune under Quintus Fabius Maximus Servilianus .

The pretorship held Fannius v to 127th In this function he convened the Senate so that it could negotiate with a Jewish embassy sent to Rome by the high priest John Hyrcanus I for the purpose of renewing the mutual alliance. On this occasion, the Jewish historian Flavius ​​Josephus expressly refers to Fannius as the son of Marcus.

Fannius reached the climax of his cursus honorum in 122 BC. When he held the consulate together with Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus . His candidacy for this highest public office had been promoted by Gaius Sempronius Gracchus , who was able to prevent the election of Lucius Opimius, who was fighting for the preservation of the Senate oligarchy, for the time being.

Fannius was responsible for the sole management of state affairs in Rome due to the absence of his official colleague from the capital. In his function as the highest representative of the state order, he turned against the order of the Senate majority against the legislative proposal of his former sponsor Gaius Gracchus to extend the civil rights of the Roman allies. That's why he had all traveled to Rome Italians who wanted to vote Act Gracchus, expel from the capital and urged the people in a quickly became famous, perhaps through a central source to the late antiquity tangible remaining speech De sociis et nomine Latino contra (C .) Gracchum to reject the request. Cicero did not share the opinion, which was partially held at the time, that this excellent speech was authored by Gaius Persius or that it was the joint work of some nobles, since Fannius was only a mediocre speaker, as the speech showed a stylistic uniformity and Gaius Gracchus in his reply did not respond to rumors questioning Fannius' authorship. A few fragments of this speech have survived to this day. In his brief history, the early imperial Roman historian Velleius included Paterculus Fannius in a list of important speakers who lived before Cicero.

There is no information about the later life of Fannius and the year of his death. Cicero introduced him as a literary minor character in his two works De re publica and Laelius de amicitia .

History work

The historical work written by Gaius Fannius after his consulate, which is mostly cited by the ancient authors under the title Annales , can only be grasped today in very small traces, namely eight fragments. Only three of these fragments also show the number of the book from which they were taken. According to this, the font, which Cicero classified stylistically quite favorable, comprised at least eight books. Possibly it only dealt with the time of Fannius himself - this in any case with certainty and in detail - but neither the beginning nor the end of the historical events depicted therein are possible.

In a preserved fragment from the foreword of his Historiae , Sallust praises the fact that Fannius endeavored to be very true to the truth when writing his historical work. In his work, Fannius reported, among other things, on domestic political events and apparently also recorded “verbatim” speeches by important statesmen; this is attested at least for the 133 BC. Chr. Written speech of Quintus Caecilius Metellus Macedonicus against Tiberius Gracchus. As mentioned, Brutus produced an excerpt from the work, which probably provided very valuable information for the Gracchi period, but whose after-effects as a source for later authors cannot be fathomed in view of the sparse material.

Edition of the fragments

literature

Remarks

  1. ↑ Cicero, Brutus 99ff.
  2. ↑ Cicero, Epistulae ad Atticum 12, 5b.
  3. ^ Friedrich Münzer, in: Hermes 55, 1920, pp. 427–442.
  4. ↑ Werner Suerbaum (Ed.), Handbuch der Latinischen Literatur der Antike , 1st vol., 2002, p. 426.
  5. ↑ Cicero, Brutus 101.
  6. ↑ Plutarch , Tiberius Gracchus 4, 5f.
  7. ↑ Cicero, Brutus 100 and Epistulae ad Atticum 16, 13c, 2.
  8. ↑ Appian , Iberica 67, 287.
  9. ↑ Flavius ​​Josephus, Jüdische Altertümer 13, pp. 260–266.
  10. ↑ CIL 6, 1306 ; Cicero, Brutus 99; among others
  11. ↑ Plutarch, Gaius Gracchus 8, 2.
  12. ↑ Plutarch, Gaius Gracchus 12, 1f.
  13. ↑ Cicero, Brutus 99f.
  14. ↑ Velleius Paterculus 1, 17, 3 and 2, 9, 1f.
  15. ↑ Sallust, Historiae 1, 4 ed. Maurenbrecher.
  16. ↑ Cicero, Brutus 81.
  17. ^ Friedrich Münzer: Fannius 7). In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume VI, 2, Stuttgart 1909, Sp. 1991.
personal data
SURNAME Fannius, Gaius
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Roman politician, speaker and annalist, consul 122 BC. Chr.
DATE OF BIRTH around 170 BC Chr.
DATE OF DEATH after 122 BC Chr.