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Primus and Gabinius

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 September 2009

W. K. Lacey
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Extract

M. Primus governed Macedonia, presumably for a year, between 25 and 23 B.C. On his return he was prosecuted for maiestas for attacking a friendly Thracian tribe, the Odrysae. In his defence he pleaded orders from Augustus, which Augustus denied when he came to the court and gave evidence without being summoned. It might be thought that either he told the truth or he did not. Certainly any order he gave must have been oral, not written, since a written order could have been produced in evidence. None was produced, and it is clear (as Dr. Levick has shown) that Primus' defence counsel Murena would not have compromised his case by failing to produce an order if he could have done so.

Type
Research Article
Information
Greece & Rome , Volume 27 , Issue 1 , April 1980 , pp. 31 - 33
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1980

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References

Notes

1. The genesis of this paper is Levick's, Barbara article ‘Primus, Murena, and Fides’ in Greece and Rome 22 (1975), 156 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar; to her I hereby acknowledge my debt for many points in what follows, and thanks for reading and commenting upon an earlier draft.

2. [Cassius] Dio 39.12–13.

3. Cicero, , ad fam. 1.1 ff.Google Scholar, for the course of the debate; Plutarch, , Pompey 49Google Scholar; Dio 39.16.

4. Livy, , Epit. 105Google Scholar; Dio 39.55–8 (who says explicitly that Pompeius ordered it).

5. Cicero, , in Pisonem 49Google Scholar; cf. Dio, l.c.; Plutarch, , Antony 3Google Scholar.

6. Cicero, , ad Q.f. 3.4.1–3Google Scholar; ad Att. 4.18.1; Dio 39.60–2 – and this despite a very hostile reception.

7. Dio 39.63; cf. ibid. 55; Cicero, , pro Rab. Post. 21Google Scholar.

8. For the view that prompting Gabinius was virtually his last chance of getting Ptolemy into his clientela, Fantham, E., Historia 24 (1975), 431Google Scholar.

9. Cicero, , pro Rab. Post. 32–3Google Scholar;cf. Dio 39.63.

10. Dio 54.3.

11. As Gabinius also claimed, Cicero, , pro Rab. Post. 20Google Scholar. Note also Cicero's advice to Lentulus Spinther ‘esse et tuae et nostri imperil dignitatis’ to do the job by military and naval force; ad.fam. 1.7.4.

12. For the bitterness of Crassus' attacks on Gabinius, Fantham, loc. cit., who cites Cicero, , ad. fam. 1.9.20Google Scholar.

13. Annals 1.74.5 (A.D. 15); cf. Ann. 13.28.1.