Marcus Servilius Pulex Geminus

Marcus Servilius Pulex Geminus († after 167 BC) came from the Roman family of the Servilians and was 202 BC. Chr. Consul .

Lineage and Early Career

Marcus Servilius Pulex Geminus was a son of from 218 to 203 BC. A prisoner of war of the Chr. Boier located Prätoriers Gaius Servilius Geminus and younger brother of the consul of the same name 203 v. His full name including the filiation C. f. P. n. Is only mentioned by the Fasti Capitolini for the years 203 and 202 BC. And his as yet unexplained cognomen Pulex is otherwise not at all literary attested. Like his brother, he belonged to the class of plebeians to which his father had probably already converted.

During the Second Punic War , which Rome waged against Hannibal , Servilius Pulex Geminus successfully faced numerous personal duels with the enemy, drew many scars and has since been considered a war hero and tried rider, as he himself was in 167 BC. On the occasion of his advocacy of the award of triumph for the Macedonian conqueror Lucius Aemilius Paullus in a speech attributed to him by the Roman historian Titus Livius . Some of his descendants minted coins that allude to his warlike achievements and depict him, for example, as a rider impaling a fleeing enemy rider with his lance.

Servilius Pulex Geminus received the priesthood of augur in 211 BC. In place of the two-time consul Spurius Carvilius Maximus Ruga, who died at that time . The first known office of his cursus honorum is the curular aedility , which he gave in 204 BC. BC together with Gaius Livius Salinator . In this capacity, he and his counterpart had a golden quadriga set up in the Capitol . 203 BC He served as a Magister equitum of the dictator Publius Sulpicius Galba Maximus . According to a source from Livy, the reason for the appointment of the dictator is said to have been that, thanks to his superior empire , he was able to recall the consul Gnaeus Servilius Caepio - who had intended to sail from Sicily to Africa without authorization from the Senate - to Italy. In his remaining term of office, the dictator and his cavalry leader Servilius Pulex Geminus visited several cities in Italy that had fallen away from the Romans during the war and carefully examined each individual case. However, according to other authors who were consulted by Livy, such investigations led to this year 203 BC. Rather, Gaius Servilius Geminus, brother of Servilius Pulex Geminus and acting consul, went through Etruria and, because he was still busy with it, ordered the dictator to hold the elections. This latter version is confirmed by the Fasti Capitolini and is considered plausible in modern research, while the former deviating reason for the appointment of the dictator is classified as a tendentious forgery.

Consulate and later career

In the Comitia headed by Publius Sulpicius Galba Maximus , Servilius Pulex Geminus was appointed consul for the next year 202 BC. Elected and received Tiberius Claudius Nero as his official colleague. He stayed in Rome during the first half of his term of office and then went to the province of Etruria which had fallen to him and which had previously been chaired by his brother Gaius Servilius Geminus. The latter was now appointed dictator by the consul to lead the elections and went to Rome, where he was at the head of the administration for the entire second half of the year. In Etruria, Servilius Pulex Geminus commanded an army with the strength of two legions and remained with extended command in his province for the next year 201 BC. Chr.

End of 201 BC Servilius Pulex Geminus and his brother belonged to a ten-man commission, which had to distribute the arable land in Samnium and Apulia , which had passed into Roman state ownership, among the veterans of Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus . 197 BC Then Servilius Pulex Geminus became one of the triumvirs elected for a period of three years (until 194 BC) whose task was to found the Roman colonies of Puteoli , Volturnum , Liternum , Salernum and Buxentum on the west coast of Italy.

After the consul Lucius Aemilius Paullus in 168 BC. BC had defeated the last Macedonian king Perseus decisively in the battle of Pydna , tried his own military tribune Servius Sulpicius Galba in 167 BC. To prevent Paullus from being granted the triumph he deserved due to a plebiscite. To this end, he incited dissatisfied soldiers to vote against the award of a triumph. Influential statesmen like perhaps the elder Cato and especially Servilius Pulex Geminus, however, eagerly sided with Paullus. Livius and Plutarch have Servilius give a long speech on this occasion, the core of which is reliable facts. Servilius enjoyed a lot of respect among the soldiers as a formerly very courageous fighter and, like Galba, was a gifted, humorous, popular speaker. In his speech he remembered, among other things, the numerous duels he had won and showed his honorable scars. Ultimately, Paullus was granted the triumph.

When Servilius Pulex Geminus died is not recorded in the surviving sources.

literature

• Friedrich Münzer : Servilius 78). In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume II A, 2, Stuttgart 1923, Sp. 1805-1807.

Remarks

1. ↑ Friedrich Münzer : Servilius 78). In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume II A, 2, Stuttgart 1923, column 1805.
2. ↑ Livy 45:37; Plutarch , Aemilius Paullus 31.
3. ^ Livy 26:23 , 7.
4. ↑ Livy 29, 38, 8.
5. ↑ Livius 30, 24, 3ff.
6. ^ Livy 30, 26, 12.
7. ↑ Friedrich Münzer: Servilius 78). In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume II A, 2, Stuttgart 1923, column 1806.
8. ↑ Fasti Capitolini ; Livy 30, 26, 1 and 30, 27, 1; Zonaras 9, 14; among others
9. ↑ Livy 30, 27, 5f .; 30, 38, 6; 30, 39, 4.
10. ↑ Livy 30, 41, 3.
11. ↑ Livy 31, 4, 2f.
12. ↑ Livy 32, 29, 3f .; 34, 45, 1f.
13. ↑ Livy 45, 35, 5-45, 39, 20 (with gaps); Plutarch, Aemilius Paullus 30, 2 - 32, 1 (in accordance with Livius).