Marcus Sergius Silus

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The reverse of this Roman denarius shows Marcus Sergius Silus on horseback with the sword in his left hand.

Marcus Sergius Silus (* 3rd century BC ) was a Roman officer and politician from the Sergians family . He was the great grandfather of Lucius Sergius Catilina . Silus became known as the first traditional wearer of a hand prosthesis .

Life

In the Celtic War and the Second Punic War , Marcus Sergius Silus distinguished himself through particular bravery, is said to have been wounded a total of twenty-three times and twice escaped from Carthaginian captivity .

During his second campaign he lost his right hand, whereupon he had an iron art hand made ( dextra ferrea ), with which he could also hold a shield . Karl Sudhoff therefore hypothesized that the prosthesis could have had a movable finger block, similar to the early iron hands of the Renaissance . However, since nothing is known about its construction, all attempts at reconstruction must remain speculative. No other hand or arm prostheses have survived from the time of Greco-Roman antiquity , and there are no archaeological indications until the late Middle Ages .

In 197 BC M. Sergius Silus held the office of Praetor urbanus . When his colleagues tried to exclude him as a physically disabled person from the public sacrifices (which fell within his jurisdiction as city preacher), Silus resisted and gave a speech, fragmentarily handed down by Pliny in his Naturalis historia , in which he referred to his acts of war.

progeny

A son or grandson of the same name had silver coins struck during his tenure as quaestor , on the lapel of which M. Sergius Silus on horseback was depicted with a sword in his left hand. T. Robert S. Broughton dates the coins and thus the bursary of the descendants to the period between 99 and 94 BC. Chr .; other dates also refer to the previous decades from 116/115 BC. In consideration.

literature

  • Karl Sudhoff : The iron hand of Marcus Sergius from the end of the 3rd century before Christ. In: Communications on the history of medicine and the natural sciences. No. 15, 1916, pp. 1-5.
  • Liebhard Löffler: The replacement for the upper extremity. The development from the first certificates until today. Enke, Stuttgart 1984, ISBN 3-432-94591-4 .
  • Loretana de Libero : into office with an iron hand? War-disabled Roman aristocrats between law and religion, exclusion and integration. In: Jörg Spielvogel (Ed.): Res publica reperta. On the Constitution and Society of the Roman Republic and the Early Principate ( special volume on the Hermes magazine and the individual writings ). Franz Steiner, Stuttgart 2002, pp. 172–191.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Liebhard Löffler: The substitute for the upper extremity . P. 8 f.
  2. ↑ a b c Loretana de Libero: With an iron hand into office?
  3. ↑ W. von Brunn: The Stelzfuß von Capua and the ancient prostheses. In: Karl Sudhoff (Hrsg.): Archive for the history of medicine. Vol. 18, No. 4, Steiner, 1926, pp. 351-360 ( JSTOR 20773385 ).
  4. ↑ C. Plinius Secundus: Naturalis Historia Liber VII. ( Digitized ).
  5. ↑ Ancient Roman Silver Denarius ( Memento from July 14, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) on artancient.net
  6. ^ T. Robert S. Broughton : The Magistrates of the Roman Republic. Volume 2: 99 BC-31 BC (= Philological Monographs. Number XV, Volume 2). American Philological Association, New York 1952, p. 13.
  7. ↑ Loretana de Libero: With an iron hand into office? P. 173.
personal data
SURNAME Sergius Silus, Marcus
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Roman officer and politician
DATE OF BIRTH 3rd century BC Chr.
DATE OF DEATH 2nd century BC Chr.