Gaius Manilius

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Gaius Manilius was a

Mithridates
.

Career

Freedmen Bill

At the beginning of his year of office as tribune (Dec. 67), he succeeded in getting a law passed (de libertinorum suffragiis), which gave

manumitted them (i.e. in the same tribe as their patronus). However, this law was almost immediately declared null and void by the Senate.[1][2]

Mithridatic War and lex Manilia

Later in the year 66 BC, Manilius proposed a bill, the

Mithridates VI of Pontus and his ally Tigranes the Great. However, Lucullus' troops mutinied under the leadership of Publius Clodius Pulcher in 67 BC, allowing Mithridates and Tigranes to invade Pontus and Cappadocia once more.[3] Lucullus' immediate replacement, Manius Acilius Glabrio, was ineffective, and by the end of 67 BC Mithridates had recovered all of his former kingdom [4]

Manilius' bill recalled all three of the generals still in the East (Lucullus in Pontus, Glabrio in Bithynia, and

lex Gabinia of 67 BC).[5]

Manilius' bill was opposed by

Servilius Vatia Isauricus, Gaius Scribonius Curio, Gaius Cassius Longinus, and Gnaeus Cornelius Lentulus Clodianus.[8][9] It was also supported by Cicero, at the time serving as praetor, in his extant speech pro lege Manilia (also known as de Imperio Cn. Pompei).[1]

Pompey soon moved against Mithridates and Tigranes and had defeated both by the end of 65 BC (though Mithridates was not killed until 63 BC).

Trial and Exile

Manilius was prosecuted twice upon leaving his office in December 66 BC, though a lack of source material makes details uncertain. It seems he was defended by Cicero from an initial charge of extortion (de repetundis), but that the trial was dropped amid violence and disturbances. However, Manilius was prosecuted again on a charge of maiestas: since he is never mentioned again in the source material, it appears he was found guilty and exiled.[10]

References

  1. ^ a b  One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Manilius, Gaius". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 17 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 581.
  2. T.P. Wiseman
    , 'The Senate and the Populares, 69–60 B.C.' , in The Cambridge Ancient History, Volume IX, 2nd edition (Cambridge: 1994), p.338
  3. A.N. Sherwin-White
    , 'Lucullus, Pompey, and the East', in The Cambridge Ancient History, Volume IX, 2nd edition (Cambridge: 1994), pp. 239–243
  4. ^ R. Williams, 'The Appointment of Glabrio (cos. 67) to the Eastern Command', Phoenix 38 (1984), pp.221–34
  5. ^ T.P. Wiseman, 'The Senate and the Populares', in The Cambridge Ancient History, Volume IX, 2nd edition (Cambridge: 1994), p. 339
  6. ^ Cicero, De Imperio Cn. Pompei 51–64
  7. ^ Plutarch, Life of Pompey 25.4
  8. ^ Cicero, De Imperio Cn. Pompei, 68
  9. ^ T.P. Wiseman, 'The Senate and the Populares', in The Cambridge Ancient History, Volume IX, 2nd edition (Cambridge: 1994), p. 335
  10. ^ G.E.F. Chilver and R. Seager, entry for 'Manilius, Gaius', in The Oxford Classical Dictionary (Oxford: 2016)
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