Gaius Horatius Pulvillus

Gaius Horatius Pulvillus was a politician belonging to the patrician family of the Horatians of the early Roman Republic . He dressed in 477 BC The consulate and exercised this highest state office possibly 457 BC. A second time.

Life

For the year 477 BC The sources testify unanimously that Gaius Horatius Pulvillus held the consulate at that time. According to the consistent reports of the ancient historians Titus Livius and Dionysius of Halicarnassus , he was first commissioned to fight the Volscians , while the other consul, Titus Menenius Lanatus, was supposed to take action against the Etruscans . However, after their victory over the Fabians in the Battle of the Cremera , in which most of the members of this Roman patrician family are said to have died, the Etruscans also defeated the consul Menenius and advanced as far as the Janiculum . Horatius, who was called back in view of this danger to Rome , first fought in a draw near the Temple of Spes against the Etruscans and even gained a slight advantage over them in a second military conflict at the Collinian Gate , whereupon the enemies withdrew. The ancient historian Friedrich Münzer considers this portrayal, which only slightly glosses over the great threat to Rome, to be “relatively good and old”.

Whether Horatius after his consulate in 477 BC 20 years later, he was the highest magistrate in Rome for a second time - this time together with Quintus Minucius Esquilinus - is not clear from the ancient sources. The editor of the Fasti Capitolini , whose information for 457 BC. Are preserved, took the identity of the consul Horatius from 477 BC. With the same gentile name from 457 BC. BC, also apparently Dionysius of Halicarnassus, who uses the same name Gaius Horatius under both years . In contrast, Diodorus and Livius did not proceed from such an equation, since they gave the consul Horatius of 477 BC. The prenomen Gaius , that of 457 BC But attributed the prenomen to Marcus . In the earliest - not preserved - tradition it was apparently only recorded that in each of the two years in question a Horatier held the consulate, but not whether this was one and the same man.

To the oldest core of the tradition for the events of the year 457 BC With regard to Rome's domestic policy, the number of tribunes was increased to ten and, with regard to its foreign policy, the city of Corbio was destroyed . That it was Horatius who fought the fighting against the Aequer at Corbio is the earliest extension of this core; all additionally mentioned details represent an even later version.

Finally, Livy reports of a 453 BC. Augur Gaius Horatius Pulvillus, who died of the plague and who probably worked with the consul of the same name from 477 BC. Is to be equated.

literature

• Friedrich Münzer : Horatius 13. In: Paulys Realencyclopädie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume VIII, 2, Stuttgart 1913, Col. 2400 f.

Remarks

1. ↑ Diodor , Bibliothéke historiké 11, 53, 1 (with slightly distorted cognomen); Titus Livius , Ab urbe condita 2, 51, 1 (without cognomen); Dionysius of Halicarnassus , Antiquitates Romanae 9, 18, 1 (without cognomen); among others
2. ^ Livy, Ab urbe condita 2, 51, 1–3; Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Antiquitates Romanae 9, 18, 5f. and 9, 24, 3f.
3. ↑ ^{a b} Friedrich Münzer: Horatius 13. In: Paulys Realencyclopädie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume VIII, 2, Stuttgart 1913, Col. 2400.
4. ↑ Fasti Capitolini ad annum 457 BC Chr .: C. Horatius M. f. M. n. Pulvillus II .
5. ^ Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Antiquitates Romanae 9, 18, 1; 10, 26, 1; 10, 28, 1.
6. ↑ Diodor, Bibliothéke historiké 11, 91, 1 (without cognomen); Livy, Ab urbe condita 3, 30, 1.
7. ^ Livy, Ab urbe condita 3, 30, 1–8; Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Antiquitates Romanae 10, 26, 1–30, 8.
8. ^ Friedrich Münzer: Horatius 13. In: Paulys Realencyclopädie der classischen antiquity science (RE). Volume VIII, 2, Stuttgart 1913, Col. 2400 f.
9. ^ Livy, Ab urbe condita 3, 32, 3.