Marcus Fabius Ambustus (Consul 360 BC)

Marcus Fabius Ambustus came from the Roman noble family of Fabians and was consul three times (360, 356 and 354 BC).

Life

Marcus Fabius Ambustus was the son of the consular tribune from 406 BC. BC, Numerius Fabius Ambustus .

For the first time Fabius was 360 BC. BC together with Gaius Poetelius Libo Visolus Konsul and led a successful campaign against the hernians , which he defeated in a few small and one more important battle. As a reward, he was allowed to hold an ovatio .

356 BC Fabius was elected consul for the second time. According to the early imperial historian Titus Livius, he waged war against the Faliskians and Tarquinians , who first shocked the Roman troops with the terrifying equipment of their priests; but they gathered again through encouraging words from their general Fabius and drove out the enemies. This victory is likely to have been falsified by the late Annalists on whom Livius relies, since immediately afterwards all Etruscans successfully advanced against Roman positions - a fact which the more credible Diodorus confirms - so that the election of a dictator became necessary and Fabius up to Had to continue the war at the end of his tenure.

About the consular elections for the next year 355 BC BC Livy reports that the Roman nobility, contrary to the Licinian-Sextic laws, wanted to help two patricians to the highest office of the state and therefore refused to hold elections to the dictator and Fabius' colleague, who were both plebeians , so that (allegedly eight! ) Interreges had to step in. The first and last pair of these Interreges are said to have consisted of a member of the Servilians and one of the Fabians; the second Interrex (named by Livius Marcus Fabius ) had pushed through the election of two patricians, against which the tribunes had appealed; but this meant only a delay because of the choice of further Interreges, because ultimately the eighth Interrex (named by Livius Marcus Fabius Ambustus ) was able to have two patricians promoted to consuls. The historian Friedrich Münzer believes that there was only one Interrex pair, Servilius and Fabius, who were doubled in the depiction of Livy, and that for the names of all other Interreges those of patrician consuls who have been in office since the establishment of the Licinian-Sextic laws had, were used and are unhistorical. Accordingly, the true core could be that the patricians, in order to enable the patrician consul Fabius, who had not yet returned because of the war, to hold the elections, forced the entry of an interregnum; the first Interrex was only formally in office, as he was not allowed to vote, but only served as a deputy until Fabius returned home, who then as the second Interrex elected two patricians to be consuls.

These patrician consuls succeeded in having two patricians as successors in the next year (354 BC); in addition to Titus Quinctius Pennus Capitolinus Crispinus , this was the third time that Fabius went to the consulate. According to Livy, who goes back to an apparently reliable source, Fabius succeeded in taking Tibur , whose inhabitants had to make peace. He also led a similar victorious campaign against the Tarquinians. Since this 358 BC After murdering Roman prisoners in their hometown and sacrificing them to their gods, Fabius had 358 noble Tarquinians whipped and executed in retaliation at the Roman Forum . He is also said to have concluded the first alliance contract with the Samnites . Diodorus reports on the same events in much the same way as Livy. Instead of Tibur, however, according to Diodorus, Praeneste was forced to make peace. At that time both cities waged joint wars against the Romans, so that they could easily be confused; but the indication of Livy is confirmed by a chronicle found in Egypt on a papyrus and by the Triumphal Acts.

Perhaps the influence of Fabius, which had certainly been strengthened by his foreign policy successes, was involved that 353 BC. BC again a patrician couple became consuls. This was not repeated the following year, but the new consuls were not allowed to elect their successors. Instead it came at the beginning of 351 BC. BC (similar to 355 BC) to an interregnum; the first Interrex was again not allowed to hold the elections, but had to cede this task to the second Interrex Fabius, who then again enforced a patrician consuls. Fabius, who this time acted as dictator, succeeded in maintaining the privileges of the patricians, in violation of the Licinian Sextic Law, in the consul elections for 350 BC. No longer.

325 BC Fabius is said to have been alive and to have stood up for his son Quintus Fabius Maximus Rullianus when he was supposed to be executed as a Magister equitum on the orders of his superior, the dictator Lucius Papirius Cursor . This agrees with the statement that Fabius - probably because he had never acted as a censor and was the oldest consular of the high nobility - was appointed Princeps senatus in an unknown year . Allegedly, he was finally born in 322 BC. When his son held the consulate for the first time, he was the master of the dictator Aulus Cornelius Cossus Arvina .

literature

• Friedrich Münzer : Fabius 44 . In: Paulys real encyclopedia of classical antiquity . Vol. VI 2. Stuttgart 1907. Sp. 1753-1756.

Remarks

1. ^ Acts of triumph for the years 360 and 354 BC Chr.
2. ↑ Fasti Capitolini (incomplete name received: … Ambustus ); Livy 7, 11, Latin 2 ; Diodorus 16, 9, 1; among others
3. ↑ Livy 7:11, 8/28; Triumphal Acts
4. ↑ Livy 7:17 , 1; Diodorus 16, 32, 1; among others
5. ↑ Livy 7:17 , 2-5.
6. ↑ Livy 7:17 , 6-10; Diodorus 16, 36, 4.
7. ↑ Livy 7, 17, 10-13 lat.
8. ↑ F. Münzer (see Lit.), Col. 1754.
9. ↑ Livy 7:18 , 10; Diodorus 16, 40, 1; among others
10. ↑ Livy 7:19 , 1-4.
11. ↑ Diodorus 16, 45, 8.
12. ↑ Oxyrhynchos Papyri I, No. 12, Col. 1, 5–7.
13. ↑ Livy 7:22 , 2.
14. ↑ Livy 7, 22, 10f. lat.
15. ↑ Livy 8, 33, 4ff .; Cassius Dio , fragment 33, 1ff .; among others
16. ↑ Pliny , Natural History 7, 133.
17. ^ Livy 8:38, 1.