Appius Claudius Pulcher (praetor 57 BC)
Encyclopedia
Appius Claudius Pulcher was a consul
of the Roman Republic
in 54 BC
. He was an expert in Roman law and antiquities, especially the esoteric lore of the augur
al college of which he was a controversial member. He was head of the senior line of the most powerful family of the patrician Claudii
. The Claudii were one of the five leading families (gentes maiores or "Greater Clans") which had dominated Roman social and political life from the earliest years of the republic. He is best known as the recipient of 13 of the extant letters in Cicero
's ad Familiares corpus (the whole of book III), which date from winter 53-52 to summer 50 BC. Regrettably they do not include any of Appius' replies to Cicero as extant texts of any sort by members of Rome's ruling aristocracy are quite few and rare, apart from those of Julius Caesar
.
's new augurs created in 81 BC), but in any case since the augural college remained organized on a curiate (antique clan-based) system, he must have succeeded to a vacated patrician augurate.
As an augur he engaged in heated debate with his senior colleague C. Claudius Marcellus (praetor
80 BC
), who maintained that augury was established from a belief in divination but perpetuated through political expediency, while Appius strongly advocated an extreme traditionalist view upholding the authenticity of the craft and eventually published a noted Liber auguralis which included a good deal of polemic directed against "Marcelline" modernity.
His typically Claudian arrogance, so evident from Cicero's correspondence with him and with Marcus Caelius Rufus
, is also mentioned in a letter to Cicero from Publius Vatinius (consul
47 BC), who was Caesar's nominee to take Appius' place in the augural college after the latter's death:
It was also characteristic of him that he was fascinated by Athenian antiquities, but not what attracted many prominent Romans to Athens at the time: its fame as the greatest university city in the Greek-inhabited world (the oikoumene) where all the chief philosophical schools were based. He was busy in Greece in 62-1 BC when his wild youngest brother Publius Clodius Pulcher
got himself into trouble for violating the rites of the Bona Dea
and was prosecuted for incestus, but it is not known in what capacity.
Cicero wrote to Marcus Brutus as follows in his treatise on the history of Roman rhetoric and orators (Brutus 267):
(cos.79), whom he succeeded as head of the main line of Claudii Pulchri when Appius pater died campaigning in the Rhodope Mountains as Macedonian commander in 76 BC. Heir of a diverse political heritage: his father was an optimate, or Aristocratic party supporter of Sulla during the first civil war, his grandfather the leading supporter of the radical populares
Tiberius Gracchus
(tr.p. 133) who was his son-in-law.
Recent family stemma.
c.138 c.164
ignota = (2) Ap.Claudius Pulcher (1) = Antistia
(Fonteia?)| cos.143, cens.136 |(Vetorum)
| (c.186-130) |
| |
| ___________________|__________
| | | | | c.143
| Claudia Claudia Ap.Pulcher Claudia = Q.Philippus
______________| Vestal minor (c.159-135/1) Tertia | mint IIIvir c.129
| | b.c.163 Gracchi | b.c.157| b.c.160s
C.Pulcher Ap.Pulcher b.c.161 x |
(c.136-92) (c.130-76) ________|______
cos.92 cos.79 | |
| L.Philippus Q.Philippus
| (c.141-c.74) (c.143-c.105)
| cos.91
|
_______________|_______________________________________________________________________
| | | | | | |
Claudiae Claudia Tertia APPIUS PULCHER C.Pulcher Claudia Quarta P.Clodius Claudia Quinta
maior et Q.Marci Regis (97-49) cos.54 (96-c.30s) Metelli Celeris tr.pl.58 L.Luculli
minor (b.c.98) augur cens.50 pr.56 (b.c.94) (93-53) (b.92/0)
(b.100-99)
and Gaius Curio pater, made enormous fortunes from the confiscated properties of Sulla's Marian victims.
Appius found generous help from Lucius Lucullus
, who upon returning from his African command in 75 BC agreed to marry the youngest sister without a dowry. He also handed over a significant legacy to Appius, who in later life marked his household's return to opulent circumstances from this gift.
Appius quickly returned the favour in political life. A promising young orator, the same year he agreed to collusively prosecute A. Terentius Varro (praetor
77), recently returned from his Asia
n command. Varro was a close friend and relative of Lucullus
and of the chief advocate of his defense Quintus Hortensius
, Rome's leading orator at the time. But Varro was apparently so guilty that Hortensius resorted to dirty tricks which involved marking the ballots of the judges he had bribed, and caused a public scandal.
Appius' good relations with Varro's family endured. Varro's homonymous son (born ca.80 BC) was later one of his closest friends, serving as quaestor
in the year of Appius' death, and later one of the most contentious and interesting characters of the early Augustan regime in modern scholarship: A. Terentius Varro Murena, who died in the early weeks (or days) of his consulate in 23 BC.
He served on the staff of his brother-in-law Lucullus
, Roman commander in chief during the Third Mithridatic War
. Most likely Appius went out with Lucullus
from the beginning in early 73 BC, although he is not directly attested in the east until the autumn of 71 following the occupation of eastern Kappadokia Pontike, when Lucullus
sent him to the Armenia
n king Tigranes to demand the surrender of Mithridates VI
.
His manner and speech offended Tigranes, the self-styled King of Kings, who for more than twenty years had been accustomed to grovelling oriental court ceremony. This was not just every day Roman frankness, but Claudian arrogance and appietas. The failure of this mission precipitated Rome's first war with Armenia, which Lucullus
began in summer 69.
Lucullus
perhaps sent young Appius with deliberate purpose, knowing full well that his manner was likely to be ill received at the court of the King of Kings. He might have sent L. Fannius or L. Magius, both of whom had experience at the Pontic court, and his letter to Tigranes addressing him simply as King, rather than King of Kings, was almost certainly a deliberate insult of the more refined diplomatic sort. Tigranes certainly regarded it as such.
On the other hand he was politically engaged before and after, attending the packed conferences at Ravenna and Luca in spring 56 when Julius Caesar
patched up the tattered coalition with Crassus and Pompey
, and in about summer 55 marrying his younger daughter to Pompeius' homonymous eldest son Gnaeus Pompeius
(born ca.79 BC), thus ensuring his electiuon to the consulate for the following year.
's energetic brother-in-law Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus
.
for a biennium after his consulate, a disaster for the region, not least because his younger brother Caius (pr.56) held the Asia
province command for the three years 55-52, or possibly the quadriennium 55-51, so that Appius and his brother controlled most of Anatolia together for at least one year of overlap and perhaps two.
His predecessor P. Lentulus Spinther (cos.57) was a good and honest administrator, and his successor Cicero
one of the best in Roman history. But the intervening Claudian command was disorderly, harsh and corrupt. His correspondence with Cicero
as the latter approached to succeed him exhibits many signs of the severe disruption, perhaps approaching horror at times, through which the country had passed under Appius' command. Cicero
was certainly shocked by what he found, and by the bizarre manner in which Appius avoided him and eventually left the province for home without meeting his successor. The impression is that Cicero
had caught a predator in the act of devouring a carcass raw.
On his way home Appius stopped at Athens once more, renewing his interest in the Eleusian Mysteries and began preparations for restoring the gate of the Lesser Propylaea in Eleusis, a project later completed, according to the instructions in his testament, by his chief heirs Pulcher Claudius and Rex Marcius.
by Cicero
's new son-in-law Publius Cornelius Dolabella
, but with the advocacy of his own son-in-law Brutus
and Quintus Hortensius
he was acquitted. This was the final speech of Rome's greatest orator after Cicero
, and Hortensius died a few days later.
In his selection of the Senate (lectio senatus) as censor, Appius removed a senator of tribunician rank named C. Sallustius Crispus, the later famous historian Sallust
.
early in 49, conspicuously without the excuse of command rights or even a legatio because he was still in office as censor (a magistracy of 18 months). Pompeius eventually put him in charge of Greece
, where he died the same year, around the time Caesar was returning to Rome from Spain.
Paulus Orosius Histories against Pagans VI (15.11):
Orosius cuts his account short to attack the most pagan Pythian Oracle. There is a much longer, and rather more exciting and lurid account of Appius' revival of the long silent oracle in Lucan's Pharsalia. There we learn that Appius, as so many before him, misunderstood the prophecy and hurried off to Euboia, expecting to seize control of Chalkis as a private domain. Instead he died there and a noted tomb was built for him near the shore of the straits of Euripus.
No sons survived to adulthood, but he had at least two daughters Claudiae neither of whom are mentioned directly by name, but only in the context of their relationships by marriage: the younger to Pompey the younger (born ca.79 BC), while the elder was the first wife of Marcus Junius Brutus
(born 85). The terminus ante quem for both marriages is spring 51 BC (calendar Iunius). Most likely Claudia maior married Brutus ca.59 (when he turned 26) while her minor sister's match with Magnus' son was probably arranged around the time of the Luca and Ravenna conferences (spring 56 BC), with the marriage taking place in Pompeius' second consulate after Appius returned from Sardinia.
It was an interesting choice of in-laws (adfines) since Brutus refused to speak to Pompeius Magnus until the Civil War, detesting him as a tyrant and the murderer of his father.
As he had no living sons, he adopted his nephew Gaius Claudius Pulcher, who changed his name to Appius Claudius Pulcher
, and who became consul in 38 BC.
Consul
Consul was the highest elected office of the Roman Republic and an appointive office under the Empire. The title was also used in other city states and also revived in modern states, notably in the First French Republic...
of the Roman Republic
Roman Republic
The Roman Republic was the period of the ancient Roman civilization where the government operated as a republic. It began with the overthrow of the Roman monarchy, traditionally dated around 508 BC, and its replacement by a government headed by two consuls, elected annually by the citizens and...
in 54 BC
54 BC
Year 54 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Appius and Ahenobarbus...
. He was an expert in Roman law and antiquities, especially the esoteric lore of the augur
Augur
The augur was a priest and official in the classical world, especially ancient Rome and Etruria. His main role was to interpret the will of the gods by studying the flight of birds: whether they are flying in groups/alone, what noises they make as they fly, direction of flight and what kind of...
al college of which he was a controversial member. He was head of the senior line of the most powerful family of the patrician Claudii
Claudius (gens)
The gens Claudia, sometimes written Clodia, was one of the most prominent patrician houses at Rome. The gens traced its origin to the earliest days of the Roman Republic...
. The Claudii were one of the five leading families (gentes maiores or "Greater Clans") which had dominated Roman social and political life from the earliest years of the republic. He is best known as the recipient of 13 of the extant letters in Cicero
Cicero
Marcus Tullius Cicero , was a Roman philosopher, statesman, lawyer, political theorist, and Roman constitutionalist. He came from a wealthy municipal family of the equestrian order, and is widely considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists.He introduced the Romans to the chief...
's ad Familiares corpus (the whole of book III), which date from winter 53-52 to summer 50 BC. Regrettably they do not include any of Appius' replies to Cicero as extant texts of any sort by members of Rome's ruling aristocracy are quite few and rare, apart from those of Julius Caesar
Julius Caesar
Gaius Julius Caesar was a Roman general and statesman and a distinguished writer of Latin prose. He played a critical role in the gradual transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire....
.
Augur, scholar, author & orator
The date of his co-option into the augural college is not known, but more likely early in life than later owing to his acknowledged expertise in augural lore, upon which he published. Most likely he succeeded his father (if the latter was one of SullaLucius Cornelius Sulla
Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix , known commonly as Sulla, was a Roman general and statesman. He had the rare distinction of holding the office of consul twice, as well as that of dictator...
's new augurs created in 81 BC), but in any case since the augural college remained organized on a curiate (antique clan-based) system, he must have succeeded to a vacated patrician augurate.
As an augur he engaged in heated debate with his senior colleague C. Claudius Marcellus (praetor
Praetor
Praetor was a title granted by the government of Ancient Rome to men acting in one of two official capacities: the commander of an army, usually in the field, or the named commander before mustering the army; and an elected magistratus assigned varied duties...
80 BC
80 BC
Year 80 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Sulla and Metellus...
), who maintained that augury was established from a belief in divination but perpetuated through political expediency, while Appius strongly advocated an extreme traditionalist view upholding the authenticity of the craft and eventually published a noted Liber auguralis which included a good deal of polemic directed against "Marcelline" modernity.
His typically Claudian arrogance, so evident from Cicero's correspondence with him and with Marcus Caelius Rufus
Marcus Caelius Rufus
Marcus Caelius Rufus was an orator and politician in the late Roman Republic. He was born into a wealthy equestrian family from Interamnia Praetuttiorum , on the central east coast of Italy...
, is also mentioned in a letter to Cicero from Publius Vatinius (consul
Consul
Consul was the highest elected office of the Roman Republic and an appointive office under the Empire. The title was also used in other city states and also revived in modern states, notably in the First French Republic...
47 BC), who was Caesar's nominee to take Appius' place in the augural college after the latter's death:
"Upon my word, I could not face it out, not if I had the impudence of Appius, in whose place I was elected". (translation by D.R. Shackleton Bailey)
It was also characteristic of him that he was fascinated by Athenian antiquities, but not what attracted many prominent Romans to Athens at the time: its fame as the greatest university city in the Greek-inhabited world (the oikoumene) where all the chief philosophical schools were based. He was busy in Greece in 62-1 BC when his wild youngest brother Publius Clodius Pulcher
Publius Clodius Pulcher
Publius Clodius Pulcher was a Roman politician known for his popularist tactics...
got himself into trouble for violating the rites of the Bona Dea
Bona Dea
Bona Dea was a divinity in ancient Roman religion. She was associated with chastity and fertility in women, healing, and the protection of the Roman state and people...
and was prosecuted for incestus, but it is not known in what capacity.
Cicero wrote to Marcus Brutus as follows in his treatise on the history of Roman rhetoric and orators (Brutus 267):
Also of those who fell in that same war there are M. Bibulus, who wrote with accuracy as well, particularly since he was no orator, and resolutely conducted many suits; Appius Claudius your father-in-law, my colleague and friend. By then he was studious enough and both very learned and experienced as orator, as well as a true expert in augural and all public law, and in our antiquities.
Lineage
Eldest son and chief heir of Appius Claudius PulcherAppius Claudius Pulcher (praetor 88 BC)
Appius Claudius Pulcher was a Roman politician of the 1st century BC.His father is uncertain — Gaius Claudius Pulcher or most likely Appius, Consul in 143 BC. The son was a supporter of Lucius Cornelius Sulla and served as praetor in 88 BC. He was exiled in that year by Gaius Marius while Sulla...
(cos.79), whom he succeeded as head of the main line of Claudii Pulchri when Appius pater died campaigning in the Rhodope Mountains as Macedonian commander in 76 BC. Heir of a diverse political heritage: his father was an optimate, or Aristocratic party supporter of Sulla during the first civil war, his grandfather the leading supporter of the radical populares
Populares
Populares were aristocratic leaders in the late Roman Republic who relied on the people's assemblies and tribunate to acquire political power. They are regarded in modern scholarship as in opposition to the optimates, who are identified with the conservative interests of a senatorial elite...
Tiberius Gracchus
Tiberius Gracchus
Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus was a Roman Populares politician of the 2nd century BC and brother of Gaius Gracchus. As a plebeian tribune, his reforms of agrarian legislation caused political turmoil in the Republic. These reforms threatened the holdings of rich landowners in Italy...
(tr.p. 133) who was his son-in-law.
Recent family stemma.
c.138 c.164
ignota = (2) Ap.Claudius Pulcher (1) = Antistia
(Fonteia?)| cos.143, cens.136 |(Vetorum)
| (c.186-130) |
| |
| ___________________|__________
| | | | | c.143
| Claudia Claudia Ap.Pulcher Claudia = Q.Philippus
______________| Vestal minor (c.159-135/1) Tertia | mint IIIvir c.129
| | b.c.163 Gracchi | b.c.157| b.c.160s
C.Pulcher Ap.Pulcher b.c.161 x |
(c.136-92) (c.130-76) ________|______
cos.92 cos.79 | |
| L.Philippus Q.Philippus
| (c.141-c.74) (c.143-c.105)
| cos.91
|
_______________|_______________________________________________________________________
| | | | | | |
Claudiae Claudia Tertia APPIUS PULCHER C.Pulcher Claudia Quarta P.Clodius Claudia Quinta
maior et Q.Marci Regis (97-49) cos.54 (96-c.30s) Metelli Celeris tr.pl.58 L.Luculli
minor (b.c.98) augur cens.50 pr.56 (b.c.94) (93-53) (b.92/0)
(b.100-99)
Early Career, 76-67 BC
His father's death left him head of his powerful family aged 20 or 21, but encumbered with two younger brothers, two unmarried sisters and little funds. This was only a relative poverty, but it proves the integrity of his father, who obviously did not profit much, if at all, from the proscription period when less scrupulous characters, most notoriously Marcus Licinius CrassusMarcus Licinius Crassus
Marcus Licinius Crassus was a Roman general and politician who commanded the right wing of Sulla's army at the Battle of the Colline Gate, suppressed the slave revolt led by Spartacus, provided political and financial support to Julius Caesar and entered into the political alliance known as the...
and Gaius Curio pater, made enormous fortunes from the confiscated properties of Sulla's Marian victims.
Appius found generous help from Lucius Lucullus
Lucullus
Lucius Licinius Lucullus , was an optimate politician of the late Roman Republic, closely connected with Sulla Felix...
, who upon returning from his African command in 75 BC agreed to marry the youngest sister without a dowry. He also handed over a significant legacy to Appius, who in later life marked his household's return to opulent circumstances from this gift.
Appius quickly returned the favour in political life. A promising young orator, the same year he agreed to collusively prosecute A. Terentius Varro (praetor
Praetor
Praetor was a title granted by the government of Ancient Rome to men acting in one of two official capacities: the commander of an army, usually in the field, or the named commander before mustering the army; and an elected magistratus assigned varied duties...
77), recently returned from his Asia
Asia
Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...
n command. Varro was a close friend and relative of Lucullus
Lucullus
Lucius Licinius Lucullus , was an optimate politician of the late Roman Republic, closely connected with Sulla Felix...
and of the chief advocate of his defense Quintus Hortensius
Quintus Hortensius
Quintus Hortensius Hortalus was a Roman orator and advocate.At the age of nineteen he made his first speech at the bar, and shortly afterwards successfully defended Nicomedes IV of Bithynia, one of Rome's dependants in the East, who had been deprived of his throne by his brother. From that time...
, Rome's leading orator at the time. But Varro was apparently so guilty that Hortensius resorted to dirty tricks which involved marking the ballots of the judges he had bribed, and caused a public scandal.
Appius' good relations with Varro's family endured. Varro's homonymous son (born ca.80 BC) was later one of his closest friends, serving as quaestor
Quaestor
A Quaestor was a type of public official in the "Cursus honorum" system who supervised financial affairs. In the Roman Republic a quaestor was an elected official whereas, with the autocratic government of the Roman Empire, quaestors were simply appointed....
in the year of Appius' death, and later one of the most contentious and interesting characters of the early Augustan regime in modern scholarship: A. Terentius Varro Murena, who died in the early weeks (or days) of his consulate in 23 BC.
He served on the staff of his brother-in-law Lucullus
Lucullus
Lucius Licinius Lucullus , was an optimate politician of the late Roman Republic, closely connected with Sulla Felix...
, Roman commander in chief during the Third Mithridatic War
Third Mithridatic War
The Third Mithridatic War was the last and longest of three Mithridatic Wars fought between Mithridates VI of Pontus and his allies and the Roman Republic...
. Most likely Appius went out with Lucullus
Lucullus
Lucius Licinius Lucullus , was an optimate politician of the late Roman Republic, closely connected with Sulla Felix...
from the beginning in early 73 BC, although he is not directly attested in the east until the autumn of 71 following the occupation of eastern Kappadokia Pontike, when Lucullus
Lucullus
Lucius Licinius Lucullus , was an optimate politician of the late Roman Republic, closely connected with Sulla Felix...
sent him to the Armenia
Armenia
Armenia , officially the Republic of Armenia , is a landlocked mountainous country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia...
n king Tigranes to demand the surrender of Mithridates VI
Mithridates VI of Pontus
Mithridates VI or Mithradates VI Mithradates , from Old Persian Mithradatha, "gift of Mithra"; 134 BC – 63 BC, also known as Mithradates the Great and Eupator Dionysius, was king of Pontus and Armenia Minor in northern Anatolia from about 120 BC to 63 BC...
.
His manner and speech offended Tigranes, the self-styled King of Kings, who for more than twenty years had been accustomed to grovelling oriental court ceremony. This was not just every day Roman frankness, but Claudian arrogance and appietas. The failure of this mission precipitated Rome's first war with Armenia, which Lucullus
Lucullus
Lucius Licinius Lucullus , was an optimate politician of the late Roman Republic, closely connected with Sulla Felix...
began in summer 69.
Lucullus
Lucullus
Lucius Licinius Lucullus , was an optimate politician of the late Roman Republic, closely connected with Sulla Felix...
perhaps sent young Appius with deliberate purpose, knowing full well that his manner was likely to be ill received at the court of the King of Kings. He might have sent L. Fannius or L. Magius, both of whom had experience at the Pontic court, and his letter to Tigranes addressing him simply as King, rather than King of Kings, was almost certainly a deliberate insult of the more refined diplomatic sort. Tigranes certainly regarded it as such.
Sardinia Command, 56-55 BC
Appius' command in Sardinia was uneventful, and he was succeeded there in 55 by M. Aemilius Scaurus (pr.56).On the other hand he was politically engaged before and after, attending the packed conferences at Ravenna and Luca in spring 56 when Julius Caesar
Julius Caesar
Gaius Julius Caesar was a Roman general and statesman and a distinguished writer of Latin prose. He played a critical role in the gradual transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire....
patched up the tattered coalition with Crassus and Pompey
Pompey
Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus, also known as Pompey or Pompey the Great , was a military and political leader of the late Roman Republic...
, and in about summer 55 marrying his younger daughter to Pompeius' homonymous eldest son Gnaeus Pompeius
Gnaeus Pompeius
Gnaeus Pompeius should not be confused with his father, Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus, known as "Pompey the Great."Gnaeus Pompeius , also known as Pompey the Younger , was a Roman politician and general from the late Republic .Gnaeus Pompeius was the elder son of Pompey the Great Gnaeus Pompeius should...
(born ca.79 BC), thus ensuring his electiuon to the consulate for the following year.
Consul 54
Elected second to the consulate for 54 along with CatoCato the Younger
Marcus Porcius Cato Uticensis , commonly known as Cato the Younger to distinguish him from his great-grandfather , was a politician and statesman in the late Roman Republic, and a follower of the Stoic philosophy...
's energetic brother-in-law Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus
Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus (consul 54 BC)
Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, consul 54 BC, was an enemy of Julius Caesar and a strong supporter of the aristocratic party in the late Roman Republic.He is first mentioned in 70 BC by Cicero as a witness against Verres...
.
Cilicia Command, 53-51 BC
He was Governor of CiliciaCilicia
In antiquity, Cilicia was the south coastal region of Asia Minor, south of the central Anatolian plateau. It existed as a political entity from Hittite times into the Byzantine empire...
for a biennium after his consulate, a disaster for the region, not least because his younger brother Caius (pr.56) held the Asia
Asia
Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...
province command for the three years 55-52, or possibly the quadriennium 55-51, so that Appius and his brother controlled most of Anatolia together for at least one year of overlap and perhaps two.
His predecessor P. Lentulus Spinther (cos.57) was a good and honest administrator, and his successor Cicero
Cicero
Marcus Tullius Cicero , was a Roman philosopher, statesman, lawyer, political theorist, and Roman constitutionalist. He came from a wealthy municipal family of the equestrian order, and is widely considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists.He introduced the Romans to the chief...
one of the best in Roman history. But the intervening Claudian command was disorderly, harsh and corrupt. His correspondence with Cicero
Cicero
Marcus Tullius Cicero , was a Roman philosopher, statesman, lawyer, political theorist, and Roman constitutionalist. He came from a wealthy municipal family of the equestrian order, and is widely considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists.He introduced the Romans to the chief...
as the latter approached to succeed him exhibits many signs of the severe disruption, perhaps approaching horror at times, through which the country had passed under Appius' command. Cicero
Cicero
Marcus Tullius Cicero , was a Roman philosopher, statesman, lawyer, political theorist, and Roman constitutionalist. He came from a wealthy municipal family of the equestrian order, and is widely considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists.He introduced the Romans to the chief...
was certainly shocked by what he found, and by the bizarre manner in which Appius avoided him and eventually left the province for home without meeting his successor. The impression is that Cicero
Cicero
Marcus Tullius Cicero , was a Roman philosopher, statesman, lawyer, political theorist, and Roman constitutionalist. He came from a wealthy municipal family of the equestrian order, and is widely considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists.He introduced the Romans to the chief...
had caught a predator in the act of devouring a carcass raw.
On his way home Appius stopped at Athens once more, renewing his interest in the Eleusian Mysteries and began preparations for restoring the gate of the Lesser Propylaea in Eleusis, a project later completed, according to the instructions in his testament, by his chief heirs Pulcher Claudius and Rex Marcius.
Censor 50
Elected censor in 50 with Caesar's father-in-law Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus (cos.58), Appius was promptly prosecuted for electoral briberyBribery
Bribery, a form of corruption, is an act implying money or gift giving that alters the behavior of the recipient. Bribery constitutes a crime and is defined by Black's Law Dictionary as the offering, giving, receiving, or soliciting of any item of value to influence the actions of an official or...
by Cicero
Cicero
Marcus Tullius Cicero , was a Roman philosopher, statesman, lawyer, political theorist, and Roman constitutionalist. He came from a wealthy municipal family of the equestrian order, and is widely considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists.He introduced the Romans to the chief...
's new son-in-law Publius Cornelius Dolabella
Publius Cornelius Dolabella
Publius Cornelius Dolabella was a Roman general, by far the most important of the Dolabellae. He arranged for himself to be adopted by a plebeian so that he could become a Tribune.. He married Cicero's daughter Tullia Ciceronis...
, but with the advocacy of his own son-in-law Brutus
Marcus Junius Brutus
Marcus Junius Brutus , often referred to as Brutus, was a politician of the late Roman Republic. After being adopted by his uncle he used the name Quintus Servilius Caepio Brutus, but eventually returned to using his original name...
and Quintus Hortensius
Quintus Hortensius
Quintus Hortensius Hortalus was a Roman orator and advocate.At the age of nineteen he made his first speech at the bar, and shortly afterwards successfully defended Nicomedes IV of Bithynia, one of Rome's dependants in the East, who had been deprived of his throne by his brother. From that time...
he was acquitted. This was the final speech of Rome's greatest orator after Cicero
Cicero
Marcus Tullius Cicero , was a Roman philosopher, statesman, lawyer, political theorist, and Roman constitutionalist. He came from a wealthy municipal family of the equestrian order, and is widely considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists.He introduced the Romans to the chief...
, and Hortensius died a few days later.
In his selection of the Senate (lectio senatus) as censor, Appius removed a senator of tribunician rank named C. Sallustius Crispus, the later famous historian Sallust
Sallust
Gaius Sallustius Crispus, generally known simply as Sallust , a Roman historian, belonged to a well-known plebeian family, and was born at Amiternum in the country of the Sabines...
.
The Hollows of Euboia
He went east with PompeyPompey
Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus, also known as Pompey or Pompey the Great , was a military and political leader of the late Roman Republic...
early in 49, conspicuously without the excuse of command rights or even a legatio because he was still in office as censor (a magistracy of 18 months). Pompeius eventually put him in charge of Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
, where he died the same year, around the time Caesar was returning to Rome from Spain.
Paulus Orosius Histories against Pagans VI (15.11):
Appius Claudius censorinus, who by Pompeius' order was looking after Greece, wanted to test the trustworthiness of the Pythian Oracle, done away with by this time. Indeed the Seer whom he forced to descend into the cave is reported to have given him this reply when consulted about the war:
This war does not concern you, O Roman.
You shall hold the hollows of Euboia.
Now they call the Euboic Gulf “the hollows”. Thus Appius, uncertain about this inscrutable fate, passed away.
Orosius cuts his account short to attack the most pagan Pythian Oracle. There is a much longer, and rather more exciting and lurid account of Appius' revival of the long silent oracle in Lucan's Pharsalia. There we learn that Appius, as so many before him, misunderstood the prophecy and hurried off to Euboia, expecting to seize control of Chalkis as a private domain. Instead he died there and a noted tomb was built for him near the shore of the straits of Euripus.
Marriages & children
His wives and marriage details remain unknown, and he may not have married until after returning from the eastern wars.No sons survived to adulthood, but he had at least two daughters Claudiae neither of whom are mentioned directly by name, but only in the context of their relationships by marriage: the younger to Pompey the younger (born ca.79 BC), while the elder was the first wife of Marcus Junius Brutus
Marcus Junius Brutus
Marcus Junius Brutus , often referred to as Brutus, was a politician of the late Roman Republic. After being adopted by his uncle he used the name Quintus Servilius Caepio Brutus, but eventually returned to using his original name...
(born 85). The terminus ante quem for both marriages is spring 51 BC (calendar Iunius). Most likely Claudia maior married Brutus ca.59 (when he turned 26) while her minor sister's match with Magnus' son was probably arranged around the time of the Luca and Ravenna conferences (spring 56 BC), with the marriage taking place in Pompeius' second consulate after Appius returned from Sardinia.
It was an interesting choice of in-laws (adfines) since Brutus refused to speak to Pompeius Magnus until the Civil War, detesting him as a tyrant and the murderer of his father.
As he had no living sons, he adopted his nephew Gaius Claudius Pulcher, who changed his name to Appius Claudius Pulcher
Appius Claudius Pulcher (consul 38 BC)
Appius Claudius Pulcher was a Roman politician. An early supporter of Augustus, he was elected consul in 38 BC.-Biography:A member of the patrician branch of the Claudii family, Pulcher originally bore the name Gaius Claudius Pulcher, and was the natural born son of Gaius Claudius Pulcher, a...
, and who became consul in 38 BC.
Ancient sources
- Stangl, ThomasThomas Stangl----Thomas Stangl was a German classical scholar and text critic. He is found referenced most often for his edition of scholia to Cicero's speeches , especially for his work on Asconius and the Bobbio Scholiast....
: Ciceronis Orationum Scholiastae: Asconius. Scholia Bobiensia. Scholia Pseudoasconii Sangallensia. Scholia Cluniacensia et recentiora Ambrosiana ac Vaticana. Scholia Lugdunensia sive Gronoviana et eorum excerpta Lugdunensia (Vienna, 1912; reprinted Georg Olms, Hildesheim, 1964) - Asconius. Caesar Giarratano (ed.) Q. Asconii Pediani Commentarii, (Rome, 1920; reprinted Adolf M. Hakkert, Amsterdam, 1967)
- Cicero ad Atticum (Letters to Atticus). D. R. Shackleton Bailey (ed.) Cambridge and Teubner
- Cicero ad Familiares (Letters to Friends). D. R. Shackleton Bailey (ed.) Cicero: Epistulae ad Familiares Vol.I, 62-47 BC (Cambridge Classical Texts & Commentaries vol.16, Cambridge University Press, 1977). This volume includes the 13 letters from Cicero to Appius Claudius (pp. 123–151).
- Cicero ad QF (Letters to his brother Quintus). W. S. Watts (ed.) M. Tulli Ciceronis Epistulae, Vol.III: Epistulae ad Quintum Fratrem, Epistulae ad M. Brutum, Fragmenta Epistularum. Accedunt Commentariolum Petitionis et Pseudo-Ciceronis epistula ad Octavianum, (Oxford University Press, 1958)
- Cicero Brutus. A. A. Wilkins (ed.) Oxford, 1903
- Varro Rerum Rusticarum libri III
Modern works
- RE vol.3 (1901), s. v. Claudius (297)
- Münzer, Friedrich: Roman Aristocratic Parties and Families (The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999); translation by T. Ridley of the original text Römische Adelsparteien und Adelsfamilien (J.B.Metzler, Stuttgart, 1920)
- Constans, L A: Un Correspondant de Cicéron, Ap. Claudius Pulcher (Paris, 1921)
- Lintott, Andrew W:Andrew LintottAndrew William Lintott is a classical scholar who specializes in the political and administrative history of ancient Rome, Roman law, and epigraphy. He is an emeritus fellow of Worcester College, University of Oxford....
"Popular Justice in a Letter of Cicero to Quintus", Rh.Mus. (1967), 65 - Cadoux, T J: s. v. Claudius (12) Pulcher in The Oxford Classical Dictionary2 (1970), p. 247
- Gruen, Erich S: The Last Generation of the Roman Republic (University of California Press, 1974; reprinted 1994 with new introduction) paperback ISBN 0-520-20153-1