Quintus Caecilius Metellus (Consul 206 BC)

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Quintus Caecilius Metellus came from the Roman plebeian family of the Caecilians and was 206 BC. Chr. Consul .

Life

Quintus Caecilius Metellus was the son of the consul from 251 and 247 BC. BC, Lucius Caecilius Metellus . He kept his father when he 221 BC. Died, the funeral oration handed down in extracts from Pliny the Elder . Cicero cites him in his list of Roman speakers.

The first part of Metellus' political career falls during the Second Punic War , which Rome waged against Hannibal . From 216 BC. Metellus exercised the sacred office of a pontiff . 209 BC He was a plebeian aedile and the following year a curular aedile. 207 BC He served in the army of the consul Gaius Claudius Nero and was one of the legates sent to Rome to announce the defeat and death of Hannibal's younger brother Hasdrubal in the battle of Metaurus .

When Marcus Livius Salinator at the end of 207 BC Was appointed dictator to hold the elections for the next year, Metellus acted as his Magister equitum and became consul of these comitia from 206 BC. Elected. His counterpart was one of his comrades in the fight against Hasdrubal, Lucius Veturius Philo . The consuls received as their district (provincia) the Bruttium in southern Italy , where they were supposed to fight against Hannibal. Her term of office passed without any major fighting. In the following year 205 BC Metellus remained as proconsul in Bruttium, where he commanded an army of two legions . He went at the end of 205 BC. Back to Rome and led the elections for the next year as dictator.

In the following years Metellus appeared in the Senate as an important supporter of Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus . His legate Quintus Pleminius had 205 BC. During Scipio's absence in the conquered Locri exercised a regiment of terror. The multiple consul and former dictator Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus , one of the most influential Romans of his time, gave Scipio complicity in the crimes of Pleminius and his soldiers and tried to bring him to justice. At the suggestion of Metellus, at the beginning of 204 BC. The praetor- designate of Sicily, Marcus Pomponius Matho , was appointed chairman of a commission to investigate this matter. Matho was a cousin of Scipio and stood up massively for his interests, so that Scipio could translate to North Africa and shift the war there. 203 and 202 BC Metellus was still the most important defender of the Scipions in the Senate. When Rome in 201 BC When the Second Punic War emerged victorious, Metellus is said to have expressed skepticism as to whether the end of the war would be more of benefit or harm for the Romans.

Metellus was then in 201 BC. BC Member of a state commission from Decemvirn for the distribution of public land in Samnium and Apulia to those veterans who had fought with Scipio in Africa against Hannibal. As head of a Roman delegation, he mediated in 186 BC In a conflict between the Macedonian king Philip V and his neighbors. He then examined disputes in the Peloponnese . It wasn't until two years later, 184 BC. BC, he could make his way back to Italy. At last he becomes 179 BC. Mentioned when he tried to bring about an understanding between the censor Marcus Aemilius Lepidus and his former opponent and current comrade Marcus Fulvius Nobilior .

Quintus Caecilius Metellus can be identified with the consul Metellus who is said to have thrown the Roman poet Gnaeus Naevius in prison, as he violently polemicized against the Meteller .

literature

Remarks

  1. ↑ Pliny, Naturalis historia 7, 139-141 .
  2. ↑ Cicero, Brutus 57 and 77 .
  3. ^ Livy 23:21 , 7 .
  4. ↑ Livy 27, 21, 9 and 27, 36, 8 .
  5. ^ Livy 27, 51, 3 .
  6. ↑ Fasti Capitolini ; Livy 28:10, 1 ; Cicero, Brutus 57; among others
  7. ↑ Livy 28:10 , 8; 28, 11, 11-14; Cassius Dio , fragment 56, 61.
  8. ↑ Livius 28, 45, 9ff. ; 28, 46, 3.
  9. ↑ Fasti Capitolini; Livy 29:10, 2 ; 29, 11, 9ff.
  10. ↑ Livius 29, 20ff. ; on this Serge Lancel: Hannibal. Fayard, Paris 1995, ISBN 2-213-59550-X (In German: Hannibal. Eine Biographie. Artemis & Winkler, Düsseldorf et al. 1998, ISBN 3-538-07068-7 , pp. 269 f.).
  11. ↑ Livy 30, 23, 3f. ; 30, 27, 2 .
  12. ↑ Valerius Maximus 7, 2, 3.
  13. ↑ Livy 31, 4, 3 .
  14. ↑ Polybios 22, 6 and ö .; Livy 39:24, 13 ; 39, 33, 1ff. ; 39, 47, 6 ; Pausanias 7, 8, 6 ( English translation ) and 7, 9, 1 ( English translation ).
  15. ↑ Livius 40, 45, 8ff.
  16. ^ Cicero, In Verrem actio 1, 29 with the commentary by Pseudo- Asconius , p. 140 ed. Orelli; ; Aulus Gellius , Noctes Atticae 3, 3, 15 .
personal data
SURNAME Caecilius Metellus, Quintus
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Metellus, Quintus Caecilius
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Roman consul 206 BC Chr.
DATE OF BIRTH 3rd century BC Chr.
DATE OF DEATH after 179 BC Chr.