Gaius Sulpicius Galus (Consul 166 BC)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Gaius Sulpicius Galus († shortly before 149 BC) came from the Roman patrician family of the Sulpicians and was 166 BC. Chr. Consul .

Gaius Sulpicius Galus was the grandson of the consul of the same name from 243 BC. The ancient historian Friedrich Münzer suspects that his father was born in 211 BC. BC Praetor Gaius Sulpicius who administered Sicily could have been, but whose cognomen is unknown.

In the first part of his cursus honorum , Galus appears mainly in the suite of Lucius Aemilius Paullus Macedonicus , with whom he was probably close friends. From the fact that the two men 171 BC Were elected by the province of Hispania ulterior as senatorial cartridges in lawsuits against extortionate Spanish governors, it should appear that Galus was probably 191/190 BC. BC during the governorship of Paullus in this province. In any case, he took 182 BC In the campaign of Paullus, who was elected consul for the first time at the time, against the Ligurian tribe and informed the Senate of the success of his general in the next year.

169 BC Galus became city ​​praetor and, together with his later consular colleague Marcus Claudius Marcellus, supported the people against the consuls Quintus Marcius Philippus and Gnaeus Servilius Caepio , when the latter complained about the resistance to recruitment for the Third Macedonian-Roman War . Galus and Marcellus blamed the consuls for their allegedly excessive ambition and then carried out the troops themselves on behalf of the Senate which gave them their right. In his function as city praetor, Galus also organized a performance of Thyestes by the Roman poet Ennius .

168 BC As a military tribune , Galus took part in the victorious campaign of Paullus, elected consul for the second time, against the last Macedonian king Perseus . On the night before the decisive battle of Pydna (June 21/22, 168 BC), a total lunar eclipse caused great unrest among both warring parties. The more credible tradition states that despite knowing how the event had come about, Paullus carried out atonement out of consideration for religious opinion; participation of the Galus is not mentioned. According to another tradition, on the other hand, Galus gave the astronomical explanation for the origin of the phenomenon and was thus able to reduce the fear of the Romans. A third version even claims that Galus predicted the lunar eclipse and thereby reassured the soldiers. The basis for this decoration is likely to be the fact that Galus wrote a book on astronomy known to Varro , but soon lost. Otherwise little is known about his education.

167 BC Chr. Galus commanded the Roman troops on behalf of Paullus, who was traveling to Greece at the time, who had moved into their quarters near Amphipolis , but later had to put up with the reproach of Paullus for not dealing strictly enough with the captured Macedonian king, but also with his own army members .

Galus reached the high point of his career in 166 BC. When he held the consulate with Marcus Claudius Marcellus. In northern Italy they defeated the Ligurians and other Alpine peoples. As a reward for this achievement, they were allowed to hold a triumph .

164 BC BC Galus went on a diplomatic trip to the east with a Manius Sergius . In Greece he should make the decision in a border conflict between Sparta and Megalopolis . In Sardis he investigated the truth of the complaints against Eumenes II of Pergamon and the suspicion that Eumenes was making common cause against Rome with the Seleucid king Antiochus IV . The historian Polybios accuses Galus of inconsiderate action and gross partiality against Eumenes.

When Galus lost a son, he endured this stroke of fate very calmly. Allegedly because of his strict moral disposition, he divorced his wife because she appeared publicly without a veil. However, since Paullus and the older Cato , who were considered to be extremely virtuous, also divorced in this epoch in order to be able to father new offspring at an advanced age with a second wife, Friedrich Münzer assumes the same motive for Galus: after his death Son, his wife was perhaps too old for the birth of further children, so that he separated from her under the pretext of strict moral standards and fathered the underage son Quintus Sulpicius Galus with a new wife .

As a very old man, Galus died shortly before 149 BC. BC, because this year his mentioned minor son was already under the tutelage of Servius Sulpicius Galba .

The lunar crater Sulpicius Gallus is named after him.

literature

Remarks

  1. Full name according to Fasti Capitolini and Triumphal Acts: Gaius Sulpicius Galus C. f. C. n . ; for ancestry cf. Friedrich Münzer: Sulpicius 66). In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume IV A, 1, Stuttgart 1931, Col. 808.
  2. Livius 43, 2, 5ff.
  3. ^ Livy 40, 28, 8.
  4. ^ Livius 43, 11, 7 and ö.
  5. Livy 43:14, 3–5; 43, 15, 1-5.
  6. Cicero , Brutus 78.
  7. Polybios 29, 16, 1f .; Plutarch , Aemilius Paullus 17, 7-10.
  8. Cicero, De re publica 1, 23; Valerius Maximus 8, 11, 1.
  9. Livy 44, 37, 5-9; Pliny , Natural History 2, 53; Frontinus , Strategemata 1, 12, 8; among others
  10. ^ Pliny, Natural History 2, 53.
  11. Livy 45, 27, 6 and 45, 28, 9f.
  12. Fasti Capitolini; Cicero, De re publica 1, 21; Livy 45:44, 2; among others
  13. ^ Livius, periochae 46; Acts of triumph; Obsequens 12.
  14. Polybios 31, 1, 6f. and 31, 6, 1-5; Pausanias 7:11, 1-3.
  15. Cicero, epistulae ad familiares 4, 6, 1; Laelius de amicitia 9.
  16. Plutarch, Quaestiones Romanae 14; Valerius Maximus 6, 3, 10.
  17. ^ Friedrich Münzer: Sulpicius 66). In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume IV A, 1, Stuttgart 1931, Col. 811.
  18. Cicero, de oratore 1, 228; Brutus 90.