Quintus Ogulnius Gallus

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Quintus Ogulnius Gallus (* around 330 BC; † around 250 BC) was an important politician during the Roman Republic.

As a tribune of the people (together with his brother Gnaeus Ogulnius Gallus ) he procured in 300 BC The Lex Ogulnia , which also gave plebeians access to priesthoods. The Collegium pontificum was expanded to nine pontifices , four of which belonged to the plebeians. The number of augurs was also increased to nine, five of them from the ranks of the plebeians. This law led to a clear relaxation of the class struggles . In 296 BC As a curular aedile , he had a bronze monument erected to the Roman city founders Romulus and Remus from fines for usury .

He became legendary especially through the leadership of an embassy to Epidaurus in 292 BC. The occasion was a severe epidemic that had been raging in Rome for several years , which, according to the instructions of the Sibylline Books, could only be defeated by calling in the god of healing Asclepius , whose sanctuary was in Epidaurus. Q. Ogulnius Gallus is said to have brought the god onto his ship in Epidaurus in the form of a serpent. In Rome the snake swam from the ship to the Tiber Island , where a sanctuary was built for Asclepius and the epidemic came to a standstill.

In 273 he took part in the embassy led by Quintus Fabius Maximus Gurges to the Egyptian King Ptolemy II , with which Rome and Egypt first established diplomatic contacts.

Another merit of Ogulnius Gallus was his efforts as consul in 269 BC. Around the introduction of the silver currency in Rome. The first silver coins minted after the successful expansion in Hellenistic southern Italy showed Romulus and Remus. The silver coins, based on the Hellenistic world, favored the rise of Rome to an important trading center in the ancient world.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Titus Livius , Ab urbe condita 10.6 ff.
  2. ^ Titus Livius, Ab urbe condita 10.6; Dionysius of Halicarnassus , Antiquitates Romanae .
  3. ↑ Titus Livius, Ab urbe condita 10.23; Pseudo- Aurelius Victor , De viris illustribus 22.
  4. ^ Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Antiquitates Romanae .
personal data
SURNAME Ogulnius Gallus, Quintus
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Gallus, Quintus Ogulnius
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Roman politician and consul
DATE OF BIRTH around 330 BC Chr.
DATE OF DEATH around 250 BC Chr.