Gnaeus Servilius Caepio (Consul 203 BC)

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Gnaeus Servilius Caepio († 174 BC ) came from the Roman patrician family of the Servilians and was 203 BC. Chr. Consul .

Life

Gnaeus Servilius Caepio was the son or grandson of the consul of the same name from 253 BC. He was born in 213 BC. Admitted to the priestly college of the pontifices , and held 207 BC. The curular aedility . 205 BC As city ​​praetor, he was given the task of relocating dispossessed campers .

203 BC Caepio was elected consul together with Gaius Servilius Geminus . In this final phase of the Second Punic War , Hannibal was called back to his homeland from Italy and so Caepio was able to achieve the subjugation of the last cities still held by the Carthaginians in the province of Bruttium assigned to him . The report, apparently only brought by Valerius Antias , but not by any other annalist, that Caepio fought against Hannibal at Kroton before his departure from Italy, with 5000 opponents of the Romans killed, is completely unreliable. After the departure of the great Punic general from the Apennine peninsula, Caepio wanted to follow him to Africa and for this purpose first went to Sicily , but supposedly at the request of the Senate he was supposed to give up his persecution and stay in Italy. This episode does not seem credible either.

After Hannibal had taken over political leadership in his homeland as a sufet , he made influential enemies who slandered him in Rome. On behalf of the Senate, Caepio went in 195 BC. At the head of a three-person embassy - which also included Marcus Claudius Marcellus and Quintus Terentius Culleo - to Carthage to accuse Hannibal there of having plans for war with the Seleucid king Antiochus III. forged. In order to deceive the great Punic, the ambassadors should propose other reasons for their mission. Caepio was also supposedly secretly charged with the removal of Hannibal. In any case, he quickly became suspicious and fled Carthage.

Caepio took on another diplomatic activity in 192 BC. At that time he belonged together with Publius Villius Tappulus and a Praetorian Gnaeus Octavius ​​to an embassy to Greece led by Titus Quinctius Flamininus . Alone or in pairs, the Roman diplomats, walking on various routes, conducted negotiations in several Greek states.

The Roman historian Titus Livius narrates the year of Caepio's death in 174 BC. In which he succumbed to a rampant plague. His son was the consul of the same name from 169 BC. Chr.

literature

Remarks

  1. ↑ Titus Livius 25, 2, 1f.
  2. ↑ Livy 28:10 , 7 .
  3. ↑ Livy 28, 38, 11 and 13 ; 28, 46, 6 and 13 .
  4. ↑ Fasti Capitolini ; Livy 29:38, 3 ; 30, 1, 1 ; among other things - to the offices of the year 203 BC See: T. Robert S. Broughton : The Magistrates Of The Roman Republic. Vol. 1: 509 BC - 100 BC (= Philological Monographs. Ed. By the American Philological Association. Vol. 15, Part 1). Case Western Reserve University Press, Cleveland / Ohio 1951. Unchanged reprint 1968, pp. 310-315.
  5. ↑ Livy 30, 19, 10f. ; on this F. Münzer, RE II A, 2, Sp. 1780.
  6. ↑ Livy 30, 24, 1f.
  7. ↑ Livy 33:47, 6-49, 4; Justin 31, 2, 1-8; Cornelius Nepos , Hannibal 7, 6 (incorrectly dated 196 BC); Zonaras 9, 18; on this Serge Lancel, Hannibal , German 1998, p. 316f.
  8. ↑ Livy 35:23 , 5.
  9. ^ Livy 41:21, 8 .
personal data
SURNAME Servilius Caepio, Gnaeus
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Caepio, Gnaeus Servilius
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Roman consul
DATE OF BIRTH 3rd century BC Chr.
DATE OF DEATH 174 BC Chr.