Marcus Foslius Flaccinator was a Roman politician who served as

Magister Equitum The , in English Master of the Horse or Master of the Cavalry, was a Roman magistrate appointed as lieutenant to a dictator. His nominal function was to serve as commander of the Roman cavalry in time of war, but just as a dictator could be nomi ...

two or perhaps three times, and as

Roman consul A consul held the highest elected political office of the Roman Republic ( to 27 BC), and ancient Romans considered the consulship the second-highest level of the ''cursus honorum'' (an ascending sequence of public offices to which politic ...

once in the late 4th century BC. Foslius was a member of the gens Foslia, which despite being of Patrician stock was fairly irrelevant. Indeed, previous to this Foslius, no member of the Foslii ever held the consulship and the family only had one recorded magistracy, that being of

Consular Tribune A consular tribune was putatively a type of magistrate in the early Roman Republic. According to Roman tradition, colleges of consular tribunes held office throughout the fifth and fourth centuries BC during the so-called "Conflict of the Or ...

, which was held by another

Marcus Foslius Flaccinator Marcus Foslius Flaccinator was a Roman statesman who served as a member of the ''tribuni militum consulari potestate'' in 433 BC alongside Marcus Fabius Vibulanus and Lucius Sergius Fidenas Lucius Sergius Fidenas was a Roman politician during the ...

in 433 BC. The consul Marcus Foslius Flaccinator was the son of a Gaius Foslius and grandson of Marcus Foslius; however nothing is known about these two individuals and their names are only known through fillation.

Career

Foslius first appears in history in 320 BC as the Magister Equitum of

Gaius Maenius Gaius Maenius (possibly Gaius Maenius Antiaticus) was a Roman statesman and general who was elected consul in 338 BC and appointed dictator twice, in 320 BC and 314 BC. Consulship and the Latin War Hailing from a plebeian family, Maenius was elect ...

. The purpose for the appointment of Maenius in this year is unclear and disputed, it may have been in reaction to a conspiracy by the leading men of

Capua Capua ( , ) is a city and ''comune'' in the province of Caserta, in the region of Campania, southern Italy, situated north of Naples, on the northeastern edge of the Campanian plain. History Ancient era The name of Capua comes from the Etrusc ...

, and later to investigate the abuses of prominent Roman noblemen, however some sources state that these events took place in 314 BC, and that year seems like the more likely year for these events to have occurred. Two years later, in 318 BC, Foslius was elected consul with Lucius Plautius Venox as his colleague. The year was relatively quiet and no military campaign was held. In this year, envoys from several Samnite tribes arrived in Rome, requesting the senate to agree to peace. The senate were initially sympathetic to their entreaties, but the people were not enthralled with peace with the

Samnites The Samnites () were an ancient Italic people who lived in Samnium, which is located in modern inland Abruzzo, Molise, and Campania in south-central Italy. An Oscan-speaking people, who may have originated as an offshoot of the Sabines, they for ...

. Instead of a full peace, a compromise was had in the form of a truce for two years. In 314 BC he served as Magister Equitum for a second time, again under Gaius Maenius as

Dictator A dictator is a political leader who possesses absolute power. A dictatorship is a state ruled by one dictator or by a small clique. The word originated as the title of a Roman dictator elected by the Roman Senate to rule the republic in times ...

. Maenius was appointed in reaction to the discovery of a conspiracy amongst the nobles of Capua against Rome, led by the two brothers

Ovius and Novius Calavius Ovius and Novius Calavius (both died in 314 BC), brothers, were the sons of Ofilius Calavius, a Campanian nobleman during the Second Samnite War (326–304 BC). They conspired to mount an insurrection against the Romans, but when their conspiracy w ...

. However as Maenius and Foslius were about to commence the investigation into the conspiracy, Ovius and Novius Calavius both took their own lives, likely due to the consequences of inevitably being found guilty by the Romans. After the death of the Calavii, Maenius retained his position of dictator alongside Foslius, and using the pretense of uprooting conspiracies against the state, the two began to investigate corruption among the Roman elites. Having their secrets exposed caused great anger among the elites who were impeached for corruption, and caused much panic among the ones who were not as they were fearful that their own criminal acts would be exposed next. As a result, they pressed charges against Maenius and Foslius of the very crime that many among them had been accused. In reaction to this accusation, both Maenius and Foslius resigned from their positions so that they might be tried and found innocent as private citizens, thus clearing their names, rather than hide from trial behind their offices. Almost as soon as the two resigned did the trial occur, and despite the testimony of the nobles accused by them, both were acquitted. In 313 BC, Foslius may have served as Magister Equitum for an unprecedented third time, this time serving under

Gaius Poetelius Libo Visolus Gaius Poetelius Libo Visolus was a Roman politician and general who lived in the mid-fourth century BC and served multiple times as consul. Family Poetelius was a member of the plebeian Poetelia gens, a family which had previously had no consuls ...

. In the dictatorship of Poetelius, he recaptured the city of

Fregellae Fregellae was an ancient town of Latium adiectum, situated on the Via Latina between Aquinum (modern Aquino) and Frusino (now Frosinone, in central Italy), near the left branch of the Liris. History Fregellae was said to have been founded in e ...

and took

Nola Nola is a town and a municipality in the Metropolitan City of Naples, Campania, southern Italy. It lies on the plain between Mount Vesuvius and the Apennines. It is traditionally credited as the diocese that introduced bells to Christian worship. ...

, however Foslius is not mentioned as taking part in these events, meaning that he either served as an entirely subordinate officer on campaign or he remained in Rome to handle civil affairs. This third term as Magister Equitum however is disputed, because while he is recorded as being Magister Equitum by

Livy Titus Livius (; 59 BC – AD 17), known in English as Livy ( ), was a Ancient Rome, 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 traditiona ...

, 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 Rom ...

instead refers to Marcus Poetelius Libo as holding the office in this year. Since

Quintus Fabius Maximus Rullianus Quintus Fabius Maximus Rullianus (or Rullus), son of Marcus Fabius Ambustus, of the patrician Fabii of ancient Rome, was five times consul and a hero of the Samnite Wars. He was brother to Marcus Fabius Ambustus (magister equitum 322 BC). Hi ...

was also recorded as being dictator this year by

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 su ...

, the classicist Broughton attempts to reconcile the two traditions by conjecturing that there were two dictators appointed that year simultaneously, one for religious purposes and the other for military activity, which would mean that both sets of dictators and Magistri Equitum were correct.Broughton, p. 159

References

Bibliography

(Titus Livius),

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 ...

*Smith, William, ''Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Foslius Flaccinator, Marcus 4th-century BC Roman consuls