Lucius Calpurnius Piso Frugi (sometimes Censorinus) (c. 180 – 112 BC) was a Roman politician and historian of

plebeian In ancient Rome, the plebeians (also called plebs) were the general body of free Roman citizens who were not patricians, as determined by the census, or in other words "commoners". Both classes were hereditary. Etymology The precise origins o ...

origin, consul in 133 BC and censor in 120 BC.

Family background

Piso belonged to the

gens In ancient Rome, a gens ( or , ; plural: ''gentes'' ) was a family consisting of individuals who shared the same nomen and who claimed descent from a common ancestor. A branch of a gens was called a ''stirps'' (plural: ''stirpes''). The ''ge ...

'' Calpurnia, which emerged during the

First Punic War The First Punic War (264–241 BC) was the first of three wars fought between Rome and Carthage, the two main powers of the western Mediterranean in the early 3rd century BC. For 23 years, in the longest continuous conflict and grea ...

and was of Etruscan descent. The Pisones were the most important family of the gens and remained on the fore of Roman politics during the

Empire An empire is a "political unit" made up of several territories and peoples, "usually created by conquest, and divided between a dominant center and subordinate peripheries". The center of the empire (sometimes referred to as the metropole) ex ...

; their first member was Gaius Calpurnius Piso, praetor in 211, also grandfather of Piso the historian. This man had two sons,

Gaius Gaius, sometimes spelled ''Gajus'', Kaius, Cajus, Caius, was a common Latin praenomen; see Gaius (praenomen). People *Gaius (jurist) (), Roman jurist * Gaius Acilius * Gaius Antonius *Gaius Antonius Hybrida * Gaius Asinius Gallus * Gaius Asiniu ...

, the first consul of the gens in 180 who also earned a triumph for his successful command in Spain in 186, and Lucius, only known as ambassador to the

Achaean League The Achaean League (Greek: , ''Koinon ton Akhaion'' "League of Achaeans") was a Hellenistic-era confederation of Greek city states on the northern and central Peloponnese. The league was named after the region of Achaea in the northwestern Pelop ...

in 198; the latter was the father of the historian. The next generation of the Calpurnii Pisones had an impressive number of consuls—four in 16 years—as in addition to Piso's own consulship in 133, his cousins Lucius Caesoninus, Gnaeus, and

Quintus Quintus is a male given name derived from '' Quintus'', a common Latin forename (''praenomen'') found in the culture of ancient Rome. Quintus derives from Latin word ''quintus'', meaning "fifth". Quintus is an English masculine given name and ...

were also consuls, respectively in 148, 138 and 135.Forsythe, ''The Historian L. Calpurnius Piso'', p. 12. Piso was likely born between 182 and 179.

Career

Tribune of the Plebs (149 BC)

Piso probably did his ten-year military service between 165 and 152. He is first mentioned in the sources as tribune of the plebs in 149, in his early thirties. The previous year, the propraetor

Servius Sulpicius Galba Servius Sulpicius Galba may refer to: * Servius Sulpicius Galba (consul 144 BC) * Servius Sulpicius Galba (consul 108 BC) * Servius Sulpicius Galba (praetor 54 BC), assassin of Julius Caesar * Galba, born Servius Sulpicius Galba, Roman emperor fro ...

had slaughtered 9,000

Lusitanians The Lusitanians ( la, Lusitani) were an Indo-European speaking people living in the west of the Iberian Peninsula prior to its conquest by the Roman Republic and the subsequent incorporation of the territory into the Roman province of Lusitania. ...

through treachery. When Galba returned to Rome in 149, he was sued before the people by

Lucius Scribonius Libo Several men of plebeian status were named Lucius Scribonius Libo during the Roman Republic and Roman Empire; they were members of the ''gens'' Scribonia. L. Scribonius Libo (praetor 204 BC) Lucius Scribonius Libo was a tribune of the plebs in 216 ...

, Piso's colleague as tribune of the plebs; despite

Cato the Censor Marcus Porcius Cato (; 234–149 BC), also known as Cato the Censor ( la, Censorius), the Elder and the Wise, was a Roman soldier, senator, and historian known for his conservatism and opposition to Hellenization. He was the first to write histo ...

's vehement support of the accusation, Galba was acquitted. Both Cato and Piso had clients in Spain, who were worried by Galba's exactions and asked their patrons to protect them. Piso therefore passed the '' Lex Calpurnia de Repetundis'', which established the first permanent criminal court to judge Roman governors' misdeeds in their province—before 149, governors were judged by an ad-hoc court. The ''lex Calpurnia'' provided that the peregrine praetor directed the court and chose the jurors from the Senate; governors found guilty had to repay the sums extorted. This law was a milestone in Roman criminal law, and came at a time when several senators became worried that the exactions committed in the provinces—as Galba did in Lusitania—could alienate the local populations and stain Rome's international reputation.

Praetor (c.136 BC)

Piso was certainly

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 ...

before 135, as the '' Lex Villia'' required a three-year wait between holding two magistracies (and Piso was consul in 133). The dominant opinion among modern scholars is that Piso served as praetor in Sicily in a year between 138 and 136, and he was defeated by the revolted slaves of

Eunus Eunus (died 132 BC) was a Roman slave from Apamea in Syria who became the leader of the slave uprising in the First Servile War (135 BC–132 BC) in the Roman province of Sicily. Eunus rose to prominence in the movement through his reputation as ...

during the

First Servile War The First Servile War of 135–132 BC was a slave rebellion against the Roman Republic, which took place in Sicily. The revolt started in 135 when Eunus, a slave from Syria who claimed to be a prophet, captured the city of Enna in the middle o ...

. However, knowledge of this war is very poor, and mostly comes from epitomes deriving from the lost books of

Livy Titus Livius (; 59 BC – AD 17), known in English as Livy ( ), was a Roman historian. He wrote a monumental history of Rome and the Roman people, titled , covering the period from the earliest legends of Rome before the traditional founding in ...

's ''

Ab Urbe Condita ''Ab urbe condita'' ( 'from the founding of the City'), or ''anno urbis conditae'' (; 'in the year since the city's founding'), abbreviated as AUC or AVC, expresses a date in years since 753 BC, the traditional founding of Rome. It is an ex ...

''. The only mention of Piso as praetor in ancient sources is found in the epitome of Florus (dating from the 2nd century AD), who says that "The camps even of praetors (the utmost disgrace of war) were taken by him unus nor will I shrink from giving their names; they were the camps of anlius Lentulus, Piso, and Hypsaeus". From there, it has been assumed that Florus gave the names of the successive Sicilian praetors in chronological or reverse-chronological order between 138 and 135. Correy Brennan nevertheless notes that Florus is often careless in his chronology, and also frequently mixes commanders' titles. What he calls "praetor" could have been legate, quaestor, praetor, or even consul. Therefore, Brennan suggests instead that Piso did not serve in Sicily as praetor, but only as consul in 133. Since Florus tells Piso was defeated, it would be very strange to see him winning the consular election at the first possible occasion—despite his disgrace—, when the other identified commanders listed by Florus vanish from history or had to wait a longer time before reaching the consulship.

Consul (133 BC)

Piso became consul in 133 alongside the plebeian Publius Mucius Scaevola. Scaevola and Piso are respectively described as consul ''prior'' and ''posterior'', which means the

Centuriate Assembly The Centuriate Assembly (Latin: ''comitia centuriata'') of the Roman Republic was one of the three voting assemblies in the Roman constitution. It was named the Centuriate Assembly as it originally divided Roman citizens into groups of one hundred ...

elected Scaevola first. He was assigned Sicily as his province, while Scaevola remained in Rome. Sicily was initially given to a praetor, but since the praetors sent in 136 and 135 against the revolted slaves were defeated, the Senate appointed a consul in 134 to deal with them. The previous consul, Gaius Fulvius Flaccus, did nothing of note though. Piso probably picked the praetor Marcus Perperna to serve with him in Sicily, because he was a '' homo novus'' with an Etruscan background.Forsythe, ''The Historian L. Calpurnius Piso'', pp. 20, 21. He likely started his campaign by besieging

Henna Henna is a dye prepared from the plant '' Lawsonia inermis'', also known as the henna tree, the mignonette tree, and the Egyptian privet, the sole species of the genus ''Lawsonia''. ''Henna'' can also refer to the temporary body art resulting f ...

, the epicenter of the rebellion, because several sling bullets bearing his name have been found in the area. Then, Piso might have left the conduct of the siege to Perperna while he campaigned in another part of Sicily. The First Servile War was concluded the following year when the consul

Publius Rupilius Publius Rupilius, Roman statesman, consul in 132 BC. During the inquiry that followed the death of Tiberius Gracchus, conducted by himself and his colleague Popillius Laenas, he proceeded with the utmost severity against the supporters of Gracc ...

captured

Tauromenium Taormina ( , , also , ; scn, Taurmina) is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Metropolitan City of Messina, on the east coast of the island of Sicily, Italy. Taormina has been a tourist destination since the 19th century. Its beaches on ...

and Perperna ended the siege of Henna.

Enemy of Gaius Gracchus (123–121 BC)

Since Piso was in Sicily during his entire consulship, ancient sources do not tell his attitude towards

Tiberius Gracchus Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus ( 163 – 133 BC) was a Roman politician best known for his agrarian reform law entailing the transfer of land from the Roman state and wealthy landowners to poorer citizens. He had also served in the Roma ...

, who as tribune of the plebs passed several social and constitutional reforms in 133. It is generally assumed that Piso was among his opponents, because he was later an outspoken enemy of

Gaius Gracchus Gaius Sempronius Gracchus ( – 121 BC) was a reformist Roman politician in the 2nd century BC. He is most famous for his tribunate for the years 123 and 122 BC, in which he proposed a wide set of laws, including laws to establish ...

(Tiberius' younger brother), but several politicians initially supported Tiberius and later opposed his reforms or his attempt to be reelected as tribune, starting with Scaevola, Piso's consular colleague. D. C. Earl suggests that Piso initially regarded Tiberius' program with a "benevolent neutrality" as he had connections with the Fulvii Flacci and the patrician Claudii. He was a strong opponent of the

Gracchi The Gracchi brothers were two Roman brothers, sons of Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus who was consul in 177 BC. Tiberius, the elder brother, was tribune of the plebs in 133 BC and Gaius, the younger brother, was tribune a decade later i ...

, particularly in relation to the grain laws of

in 123 BC.

Censor (120–119 BC)

Piso was elected censor in 120 together with the plebeian Quintus Caecilius Metellus Baliaricus. The ''

Fasti Capitolini The ''Fasti Capitolini'', or Capitoline Fasti, are a list of the chief magistrates of the Roman Republic, extending from the early fifth century BC down to the reign of Augustus, the first Roman emperor. Together with similar lists found at Ro ...

'' are missing for these years, but since later writers citing or mentioning Piso tell he was censor, he must have been censor in 120 as it is the only year available. As a result, nothing is known of the censors' activity, apart that they likely reappointed Publius Cornelius Lentulus as

princeps senatus The ''princeps senatus'' ( ''principes senatus'') was the first member by precedence on the membership rolls of the Roman Senate. Although officially out of the ''cursus honorum'' and possessing no '' imperium'', this office conferred prestige on ...

. The censors' election took place in the aftermath of the murder of Gaius Gracchus and his supporters in 121, which saw the domination of the

conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization ...

faction led by the powerful

Caecilii Metelli The gens Caecilia was a plebeian family at ancient Rome. Members of this gens are mentioned in history as early as the fifth century BC, but the first of the Caecilii who obtained the consulship was Lucius Caecilius Metellus Denter, in 284 BC.' ...

family, and further indicates Piso's conservative background.

The ''Annales''

At the end of his life, Piso wrote a History of Rome, following several earlier Roman statesmen who wrote history, such as

, or Aulus Postumius Albinus. Among the 19 mentions of Piso's work found in ancient sources, 16 call it ''Annales'', which suggest that it was the title that Piso gave to his book.Chassignet, ''L'Annalistique romaine'', vol. II, p. xxii. The last dated fragment of the ''Annales'' deals with an event taking place in 146 (about the date of the fourth ''

Ludi ''Ludi'' (Latin plural) were public games held for the benefit and entertainment of the Roman people (''populus Romanus''). ''Ludi'' were held in conjunction with, or sometimes as the major feature of, Roman religious festivals, and were also ...

saeculares''), so Piso likely started his book after this date. As there are an unusual number of references to censorial activity in the ''Annales''' fragments, it is probable that Piso wrote them in his later years, after his own censorship in 120–119—a situation similar to that of Cato who composed the ''

Origines (, "Origins") is the title of a lost work on Roman and Italian history by Cato the Elder, composed in the early-2nd centuryBC. Contents According to Cato's biographer Cornelius Nepos, the ''Origins'' consisted of seven books. Book I was the ...

'' in his last years. Moreover, later authors who cite Piso often call him ''Censorius'' ("the censor"), a further hint that he was already a former censor when he wrote the ''Annales''.Forsythe, ''The Historian L. Calpurnius Piso'', p. 35. This additional name might have been used by Piso in his work. The ''Annales'' were written in at least seven books, from the legendary

foundation of Rome The tale of the founding of Rome is recounted in traditional stories handed down by the ancient Romans themselves as the earliest history of their city in terms of legend and myth. The most familiar of these myths, and perhaps the most famous o ...

Aeneas In Greco-Roman mythology, Aeneas (, ; from ) was a Trojan hero, the son of the Trojan prince Anchises and the Greek goddess Aphrodite (equivalent to the Roman Venus). His father was a first cousin of King Priam of Troy (both being grandsons o ...

to Piso's own times. Like most other Roman historians, Piso devoted a significant portion of the work to mythologic times and the Regal period, covered in the first book. Then, book two likely covered the beginnings of the Republic to a milestone event such as the Fall of

Veii Veii (also Veius; it, Veio) was an important ancient Etruscan city situated on the southern limits of Etruria and north-northwest of Rome, Italy. It now lies in Isola Farnese, in the comune of Rome. Many other sites associated with and in th ...

in 396, or the Sack of Rome in 387. The third book probably described the events up to the War against Pyrrhus (280–275), or the

(264–241).Forsythe, ''The Historian L. Calpurnius Piso'', p. 39. The chronology for the remaining four books is lacking; Piso possibly wrote about the events down to the second half of the 2nd century by covering one generation per book. The majority of modern historians think that Piso continued his work after the last fragment dated from 146 in order to describe the events of his consulship and censorship. The existence of an 8th book has been suggested, in which Piso could have written an apologia of his political deeds during his magistracies. He is best known for his ''Annals'' ( la, Annales), a seven book annalistic history of Rome that spanned from the mythical founding of Rome until 146 BC. His historical account, now lost and known to us from only forty-nine short quotations or paraphrases, was written in a simple style of Latin.Forsythe, G. 2012. Calpurnius Piso Frugi, Lucius. ''The Encyclopedia of Ancient History''. Later historians relied upon his work, though many did not find it satisfactory.

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 esta ...

considered his work jejune, and

did not consider him fully reliable, due to his tendency to moralize and politicize the histories that he recounted.Badian, Ernst. "Calpurnius Piso Frugi, Lucius." The Oxford Classical Dictionary. : Oxford University Press, 2005. Oxford Reference. 2005. Date Accessed 1 Sep. 2016 Aulus Gellius, however, an admirer of the archaic, commended the work and quoted the only major fragment that has survived until today. Moreover, the early 19th-century iconoclastic historian,

Barthold Georg Niebuhr Barthold Georg Niebuhr (27 August 1776 – 2 January 1831) was a Danish–German statesman, banker, and historian who became Germany's leading historian of Ancient Rome and a founding father of modern scholarly historiography. By 1810 Niebuhr w ...

, wrote that Piso was the first Roman historian to introduce systematic forgeries. Despite its shortcomings, Piso's historical work is important because it was the first time that an account was structured into individual years, making it the earliest history to follow the so-called "annalistic scheme."

List of fragments

References

Bibliography

Ancient sources

Aulus Gellius Aulus Gellius (c. 125after 180 AD) was a Roman author and grammarian, who was probably born and certainly brought up in Rome. He was educated in Athens, after which he returned to Rome. He is famous for his ''Attic Nights'', a commonplace book, or ...

, ''Attic Nights''. *Censorinus, ''De Die Natali.'' *

Diodorus Siculus Diodorus Siculus, or Diodorus of Sicily ( grc-gre, Διόδωρος ; 1st century BC), was an ancient Greek historian. He is known for writing the monumental universal history ''Bibliotheca historica'', in forty books, fifteen of which s ...

, ''

Bibliotheca historica ''Bibliotheca historica'' ( grc, Βιβλιοθήκη Ἱστορική, ) is a work of universal history by Diodorus Siculus. It consisted of forty books, which were divided into three sections. The first six books are geographical in theme, a ...

''. *Florus, Epitome of Roman History ( English translation by

John Selby Watson The Reverend John Selby Watson (April 1804 – 6 July 1884) was a British classical translator and murderer. He was sentenced to death in 1872 for killing his wife, but a public outcry led to his sentence being reduced to life imprisonment. The c ...

Wikisource Wikisource is an online digital library of free-content textual sources on a wiki, operated by the Wikimedia Foundation. Wikisource is the name of the project as a whole and the name for each instance of that project (each instance usually re ...

) *

, ''

Ab Urbe Condita Libri The work called ( en, From the Founding of the City), sometimes referred to as (''Books from the Founding of the City''), is a monumental history of ancient Rome, written in Latin between 27 and 9 BC by Livy, a Roman historian. The work ...

''. *'' Origo gentis romanae.'' *

Pliny the Elder Gaius Plinius Secundus (AD 23/2479), called Pliny the Elder (), was a Roman author, naturalist and natural philosopher, and naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and a friend of the emperor Vespasian. He wrote the encyclopedic '' ...

, '' Historia Naturalis'' ( English translation by Harris Rackham, W.H.S. Jones, and D.E. Eichholz on Wikisource). *

Plutarch Plutarch (; grc-gre, Πλούταρχος, ''Ploútarchos''; ; – after AD 119) was a Greek Middle Platonist philosopher, historian, biographer, essayist, and priest at the Temple of Apollo in Delphi. He is known primarily for his ' ...

, ''

Parallel lives Plutarch's ''Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans'', commonly called ''Parallel Lives'' or ''Plutarch's Lives'', is a series of 48 biographies of famous men, arranged in pairs to illuminate their common moral virtues or failings, probably writt ...

'' (''Numa'').

Modern sources

T. Corey Brennan Terry Corey Brennan (born November 24, 1959) is a Professor of Classics at Rutgers University-New Brunswick (USA). Under the stage name Corey "Loog" Brennan he was a guitarist and songwriter involved with several bands, including Boston-based ba ...

, "The commanders in the First Sicilian Slave War", ''Rivista di Filologia e Istruzione Classica'', 1993, n°121, pp. 153–184. *——, ''The Praetorship in the Roman Republic'', Oxford University Press, 2000. * T. Robert S. Broughton, ''The Magistrates of the Roman Republic'', American Philological Association, 1951–1952. * Martine Chassignet, '' L'Annalistique romaine. Tome II, L'annalistique moyenne (fragments)'', Paris : Les Belles Lettres, 2003. *

Tim Cornell Timothy J. Cornell (born 1946) is a British historian specializing in ancient Rome. He is an Emeritus Professor of Ancient History at the University of Manchester, having retired from his teaching position in 2011. Cornell received his bachelor's ...

(editor), ''The Fragments of the Roman Historians'', Oxford University Press, 2013. *D. C. Earl, �
Calpurnii Pisones in the Second Century BC
��, ''Athenaeum'', 1960, 38, pp. 283–298. * Gary Forsythe, ''The historian L. Calpurnius Piso Frugi and the Roman annalistic tradition'', Lanham, MD, 1994. * Erich S. Gruen, ''Roman Politics and the Criminal Courts, 149–78 B.C.'', Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 1978. *

August Pauly August Friedrich von Pauly (; ; 9 May 1796, in Benningen am Neckar – 2 May 1845, in Stuttgart) was a German educator and classical philologist. From 1813 to 1818 he studied at the University of Tübingen, then furthered his education at Heid ...

Georg Wissowa Georg Otto August Wissowa (17 June 1859 – 11 May 1931) was a German classical philologist born in Neudorf, near Breslau. Education and career Wissowa studied classical philology under August Reifferscheid at the University of Bresla ...

Elimar Klebs Elimar Klebs (15 October 1852 – 16 May 1918) was a German historian of ancient history. He was the brother of botanist Georg Klebs. Biography Klebs was born in Braunsberg (Braniewo), Prussia. He studied in Berlin under Theodor Mommsen ...

Friedrich Münzer Friedrich Münzer (22 April 1868 – 20 October 1942) was a German classical scholar noted for the development of prosopography, particularly for his demonstrations of how family relationships in ancient Rome connected to political struggles. He d ...

, ''et alii'', '' Realencyclopädie der Classischen Altertumswissenschaft'' (abbreviated ''RE''), J. B. Metzler, Stuttgart, 1894–1980. * Hermann Peter, ''

Historicorum Romanorum reliquiae The ''Historicorum Romanorum reliquiae'' is the "monumental" two-volume collection of scholarly editions of fragmentary Roman historical texts edited by Hermann Peter and published between 1870 and 1914. Peter published the Latin editions of these ...

'', Leipzig, 1914. * Francis X. Ryan, ''Rank and Participation in the Republican Senate'', Stuttgart, Franz Steiner Verlag, 1998. * Graham Vincent Sumner, ''The Orators in Cicero's Brutus: Prosopography and Chronology'', (Phoenix Supplementary Volume XI.), Toronto and Buffalo, University of Toronto Press, 1973. *

Lily Ross Taylor Lily Ross Taylor (born August 12, 1886, in Auburn, Alabama - died November 18, 1969, in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania) was an American academic and author, who in 1917 became the first female Fellow of the American Academy in Rome. Biography Born in ...

and T. Robert S. Broughton, "The Order of the Two Consuls' Names in the Yearly Lists", ''Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome'', 1949, 19, pp. 3–14. {{DEFAULTSORT:Calpurnius Piso Frugi, Lucius 180 BC births 2nd-century BC historians 2nd-century BC Roman consuls Frugi, Lucius Latin historians Roman censors Roman Republican praetors Tribunes of the plebs Year of death unknown

Family background

Career

Tribune of the Plebs (149 BC)

Praetor (c.136 BC)

Consul (133 BC)

Enemy of Gaius Gracchus (123–121 BC)

Censor (120–119 BC)

The ''Annales''

List of fragments

See also

References

Bibliography

Ancient sources

Modern sources