Lucius Vettius (died 59 BC) was a

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a letter ...

equestrian The word equestrian is a reference to equestrianism, or horseback riding, derived from Latin ' and ', "horse". Horseback riding (or Riding in British English) Examples of this are: * Equestrian sports *Equestrian order, one of the upper classes i ...

informer who informed on the

Second Catilinarian conspiracy The Catilinarian conspiracy (sometimes Second Catilinarian conspiracy) was an attempted coup d'état by Lucius Sergius Catilina (Catiline) to overthrow the Roman consuls of 63 BC – Marcus Tullius Cicero and Gaius Antonius Hybrida – a ...

in 63 BC and later, in 59 BC, denounced a supposed plot of many conservative-leaning senators to murder

Pompey Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (; 29 September 106 BC – 28 September 48 BC), known in English as Pompey or Pompey the Great, was a leading Roman general and statesman. He played a significant role in the transformation of ...

. He was jailed and then found dead.

Earlier life

Vettius was an

from

Picenum Picenum was a region of ancient Italy. The name is an exonym assigned by the Romans, who conquered and incorporated it into the Roman Republic. Picenum was ''Regio V'' in the Augustan territorial organization of Roman Italy. Picenum was also ...

and served under

Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo (c. 135 – 87 BC) was a Roman general and politician, who served as consul in 89 BC. He is often referred to in English as Pompey Strabo, to distinguish him from his son, the famous Pompey the Great, or from Strabo the ge ...

and

Sulla Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix (; 138–78 BC), commonly known as Sulla, was a Roman general and statesman. He won the first large-scale civil war in Roman history and became the first man of the Republic to seize power through force. Sulla had ...

. He was a friend of Lucius Sergius Catalina (known in English as Catiline). By 63 BC, Vettius had turned professional informant. He turned against Catiline and informed on the

to one of the then-consuls,

Cicero Marcus Tullius Cicero ( ; ; 3 January 106 BC – 7 December 43 BC) was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher, and academic skeptic, who tried to uphold optimate principles during the political crises that led to the estab ...

. Among others, he accused then-

praetor Praetor ( , ), also pretor, was the title granted by the government of Ancient Rome to a man acting in one of two official capacities: (i) the commander of an army, and (ii) as an elected '' magistratus'' (magistrate), assigned to discharge vario ...

Julius Caesar Gaius Julius Caesar (; ; 12 July 100 BC – 15 March 44 BC), was a Roman general and statesman. A member of the First Triumvirate, Caesar led the Roman armies in the Gallic Wars before defeating his political rival Pompey in a civil war, and ...

of being part of the plot, claiming he had a document in Caesar's handwriting that was intended for Catiline, which was probably forged. Similar accusations were brought by Quintus Curius, another informant, but these allegations are broadly dismissed: "none of these facts or allegations does much to increase the almost vanishingly low preexisting probability of Caesar's complicity". Suetonius relates that after these accusations, Vettius was then badly handled by Caesar, who "punished imquite severely... destroying some of his personal goods, allowing him to be roughly beaten by a crowd at a ''contio'' ublic meeting and throwing him into prison". Robert Morstein-Marx, a classicist, notes that Caesar's actions are "consistent with Roman legal custom protesting the dignity of magistrates and attitudes toward those who gave false accusation".

Vettius affair and death

Some time in 59 BC, the year of the consulship of Gaius Julius Caesar and

Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus (c. 102 – 48 BC) was a politician of the Roman Republic. He was a plodding conservative and upholder of the established social order who served in several magisterial positions alongside Julius Caesar and conceived a ...

, Vettius "announced a conspiracy of leading nobles to murder Pompey". Supposedly, this conspiracy would have involved an attack on Pompey while he attended gladiatorial games in the forum. He included in his list of conspirators many big names: Bibulus (one of the consuls), the younger and elder Curiones, two of the Lentuli, Lucius Aemilius Paullus, and

Marcus Junius Brutus Marcus Junius Brutus (; ; 85 BC – 23 October 42 BC), often referred to simply as Brutus, was a Roman politician, orator, and the most famous of the assassins of Julius Caesar. After being adopted by a relative, he used the name Quintus Serv ...

. The conspiracy, according to Vettius, was led by the younger Curio, who at the time was leading the opposition of younger nobles against the so-called

First Triumvirate The First Triumvirate was an informal political alliance among three prominent politicians in the late Roman Republic: Gaius Julius Caesar, Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus and Marcus Licinius Crassus. The constitution of the Roman republic had many v ...

and gaining substantial popular support. His accusations were disbelieved: he claimed that he had received a dagger from a servant of the consul Bibulus, to laughter from the senators who asked how he had no other means to acquire a weapon; one of the Curiones protested Paullus could not be involved, for he was in Macedonia. Moreover, Bibulus had himself notified Pompey earlier of a plot against his life; after hearing his accusations, the senators ordered Vettius thrown in jail for his self-incriminating confession of carrying a dagger within the city. The next day, he was produced before the public in a by Caesar and his tribunician ally

Publius Vatinius Publius Vatinius was a Roman politician during the last decades of the Republic. He served as a Caesarian-allied plebeian tribune in the year 59 – he was the tribune that proposed the law giving Caesar his Gallic command – and later fought on ...

; dropping mention of Brutus and Bibulus, he then accused

Lucullus Lucius Licinius Lucullus (; 118–57/56 BC) was a Roman general and statesman, closely connected with Lucius Cornelius Sulla. In culmination of over 20 years of almost continuous military and government service, he conquered the eastern kingdom ...

, Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, Gaius Fannius, Gaius Calpurnius Piso, Marcus Iuventius Laterensis, and Cicero – indirectly under the terms of a certain "eloquent ex-consul" – of being part of the plot. It is likely that the changes in his story were induced by Caesar: who "it appears, intimidated Vettius and induced him to alter his testimony... in particularly to drop the name of Brutus, son of Caesar's mistress Servilia". Vatinius pressured Vettius to name more names and promised to pass legislation to establish a special tribunal. These changed accusations also were not believed, as there was little corroborating evidence available. Returned to jail, shortly thereafter, Vettius was found dead. His death, officially of natural causes but rumoured to be murder, put an end to thoughts of a special tribunal. Views on the affair differ. Cicero, writing around the time (and also accused of being part of it), stressed his suspicions of Caesar and Vatinius' roles. For him, "Caesar had stage-managed the whole affair for the beginning... as a means of casting suspicion over the rising star of he youngerCurio". However, Cicero's later speech ''In Vatinium'' blames Vatinius for inciting the affair. This hypothesis, that Vettius was induced to fabricate accusations to ruin the younger Curio's electoral chances and discredit certain opponents of Caesar, has "won the assent of most commentators". Walter Allen, in ''The "Vettius Affair" Once More'' (1950), argued that Caesar was to blame for the accusations with the additional motive of trying to drive a wedge between Pompey and Cicero. Erich Gruen, in ''The Last Generation of the Roman Republic'' (1995), dismisses this theory, arguing that "Pompey's relations with the '' nobilitas'' were already sufficiently strained" and that "the notion of Vettius as Caesar's agent is difficult to swallow

hen he Hen commonly refers to a female animal: a female chicken, other gallinaceous bird, any type of bird in general, or a lobster. It is also a slang term for a woman. Hen or Hens may also refer to: Places Norway *Hen, Buskerud, a village in Ringe ...

had endeavoured to implicate Caesar in the Catilinarian conspiracy" three years earlier in 62 BC. It is also possible that Pompey or his allies concocted the accusations "in order to deflect the growing odium onto Bibulus" and lend credence to his often claims of fearing for his life. The aftermath of the affair led to no major changes: "no wave of popular indignation arose against Bibulus or his allies... no discernible pressure was exerted to take preemptive vengeance on those who might have wanted Pompey dead; there were no 'kangaroo courts' in the senate here wasno rush to condemn in order to please the powerful... as one sees in a true ": the allegations were, "for all practical purposes, discounted". Different interpretations of who instigated the affair lead to different interpretations of who had failed to achieve their goals. Lily Ross Taylor viewed Vettius as a Caesarian agent and that "Caesar blundered badly" in the plot. Other modern works generally dismiss reading too much into the poorly-understood and badly-documented affair.

Legacy

Vettius was possibly the subject of the Roman poet

Catullus Gaius Valerius Catullus (; 84 - 54 BCE), often referred to simply as Catullus (, ), was a Latin poet of the late Roman Republic who wrote chiefly in the neoteric style of poetry, focusing on personal life rather than classical heroes. His s ...

' 98th poem, the subject of which is described as having a stinking and rotten mouth which is and "always accusing other people of being involved in conspiracies".

References

Citations Sources * * * * *

Earlier life

Vettius affair and death

Legacy

See also

References

Further reading