Marcus Calpurnius Flamma

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Marcus Calpurnius Flamma is the name given in most ancient sources of a Roman military tribune who died in the First Punic War in 258 BC. BC saved a consular army through his heroic deed and was therefore dubbed "Roman Leonidas ".

When the troops of the consul Aulus Atilius Caiatinus , operating in Sicily , were on the march to Camarina and were ambushed , Calpurnius Flamma and 300 soldiers were ready to sacrifice themselves to save the Roman army, which was in dire danger. After the legions were liberated, he was badly injured but found alive among a pile of dead; allegedly he was the only one of his fighting force to survive. This episode has been told by numerous ancient authors (but not by Polybius in his Outline of the First Punic War).

Some sources referred to the selfless military tribune not as Calpurnius Flamma, but with a different name. The Roman politician and speaker Marcus Porcius Cato Censorius had reported on the heroic deed of the Roman officer in the 4th book of his largely lost Origines , but probably without citing his name, as he did not otherwise mention individual names of Roman magistrates in his history. A proper name was probably only added to the war tribune by the Annalists after Cato. When mentioning the episode, Aulus Gellius drew from Cato, among others, and mentioned Quintus Caedicius (probably after an annalist) and Laberius (after Quintus Claudius Quadrigarius ) as other names given for the military tribunes .

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Livy , periochae 17 and 22, 60, 11; Aulus Gellius , Noctes Atticae 3, 7; Frontinus , stratagems 1, 5, 15 = 4, 5, 10; Florus 1, 18, 13; Lucius Ampelius 20, 5; Orosius 4, 8, 2; Pliny , Naturalis historia 22, 11, among others
  2. ↑ Werner Suerbaum (Hrsg.): Handbuch der Altertumswwissenschaft , 8th section: Handbook of the Latin literature of antiquity , 1st volume: The archaic literature . CH Beck, Munich 2002, ISBN 3-406-48134-5 , p. 392.
  3. ^ Aulus Gellius, Noctes Atticae 3, 7.
personal data
SURNAME Calpurnius Flamma, Marcus
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Caedicius, Quintus; Laberius; Flamma, Marcus Calpurnius
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Roman military tribune 258 BC Chr.
DATE OF BIRTH 4th century BC BC or 3rd century BC Chr.
DATE OF DEATH 3rd century BC Chr.