Lucius Marcius Censorinus (consul 39 BC)

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Lucius Marcius Censorinus was a

senators who tried to defend Julius Caesar when he was assassinated on the Ides of March in 44 BC, and their consulship under the triumvirate was a recognition of their loyalty.[1]

Marcius Censorinus was

civil wars of the 40s, Censorinus took possession of Cicero's beloved house on the Palatine.[3]

Family

The

civil wars of the 80s and 40s–30s. Lucius's father, who had the same name, was one of Sulla's enemies in 88 BC.[4]

Censorinus's daughter (or possibly his sister) married

suffect consul in 34 BC.[5] His son Gaius Marcius Censorinus
was consul in 8 BC.

Political and military career

Censorinus was

senate.[7]

After the

Asinius Pollio in late 40 BC.[8]

Censorinus celebrated a

Octavian
acquired sole power.

Among his other rewards for loyalty, Censorinus was allowed to buy Cicero's house on the Palatine, which the orator had exerted such strenuous efforts to restore after its confiscation in connection to his exile. Its value was reckoned at 3,500,000

sesterces. Although the Palatine house, along with Cicero's other confiscated property following his death, was sold ostensibly at public auction, the symbolism of its possession can hardly have been left to chance.[11] The house next passed to T. Statilius Taurus, whom Cicero notoriously associated with Calvisius
.

As consuls, Censorinus and Calvisius brought a proposal to the

senate on behalf of representatives from Aphrodisias, who complained of abuses during the civil wars. The city was accordingly granted status as an independent ally and received additional benefits and privileges.[12]

Priesthood

In the inscription

college (collegium) as early as 31 BC,[15]
and in 17 would have been of rather advanced age.

Because he is known to have been active during this time, he is sometimes thought to be the Marcius Censorinus to whom Horace addresses Carmen 8 of his fourth book of odes. This Censorinus is identified more often as Lucius's son Gaius, the lesser-known consul of 8 BC.[16]

See also

References

  1. ^ Nicolaus of Damascus, Vita Caesaris 26 (Greek text with Latin translation by Müller); Ronald Syme, Sallust (University of California Press, 1964), p. 228 online, The Roman Revolution (Oxford University Press, 1939, 2002), p. 221 online, and The Augustan Aristocracy (Oxford University Press, 1986), p. 33; Anthony Everitt, Augustus (Random House, 2007), p. 127 online; T. Rice Holmes, The Roman Republic and the Founder of the Empire (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1928), p. 344 online.
  2. ^ Syme, Augustan Aristocracy p. 69 online.
  3. ^ Velleius Paterculus 2.14.3; Syme, Augustan Aristocracy p. 72 and The Roman Revolution (Oxford University Press, 1939, reissued 2002), pp. 195 (note 8) and 380.
  4. ^ Syme, Augustan Aristocracy p. 28.
  5. ^ Claude Eilers, Roman Patrons of Greek Cities (Oxford University Press, 2002), p. 196.
  6. ^ Cicero, Philippics 11.11 and 36; see also 12.20 and 13.2, 6.
  7. ^ Cicero, Ad Brutum 1.3a and 5.1; Livy, Periocha 119; Appian, Bellum Civile 3.63; Cassius Dio 46.39.3.
  8. ^ Plutarch, Life of Antony 24.1; Acta triumphalia for 39 (Degrassi 86f., 568).
  9. ^ Syme, Roman Revolution p. 222. For a discussion of the connection between the triumph and the consulship, see Mary Beard, The Roman Triumph (Harvard University Press, 2007), pp. 279–281, limited preview online.
  10. ^ Geoffrey S. Sumi, Ceremony and Power: Performing Politics in Rome between Republic and Empire (University of Michigan Press, 2005), pp. 198–201 online.
  11. ^ Velleius Paterculus 2.14.3; Syme, Augustan Aristocracy p. 72 and Roman Revolution pp. 195 (note 8) and 380; Harriet I. Flower, The Art of Forgetting: Disgrace and Oblivion in Roman Political Culture (University of North Carolina Press, 2006), p. 309, note 50 online; Susan Treggiari, Terentia, Tullia, and Publilia: The Women of Cicero's Family (Routledge, 2007), p. 148 online.
  12. ^ Fergus Millar, Rome, the Greek World, and the East (University of North Carolina Press, 2002), vol. 1, p. 251 online; Josiah Osgood, Caesar's Legacy: Civil War and the Emergence of the Roman Empire (Cambridge University Press, 2006), p. 228 online. An English translation of the text of the senate's decree and other inscriptional evidence appears in Naphtali Lewis and Meyer Reinhold, Roman Civilization: Selected Readings, vol. 1, The Republic and the Augustan Age (Columbia University Press, 1990), pp. 357–359 online.
  13. '^ 'CIL VI, 32323 = ILS 5050.
  14. ^ Syme, Augustan Aristocracy p. 48; Jasper Griffin, "Look Your Last on Lyric: Horace Odes 4.15," Classics in Progress (Oxford University Press, 2006), p. 316 online. The quindecimviri are listed in order of admission to the collegium, with the exception of Agrippa.
  15. Broughton
    , MRR2 p. 426–426.
  16. ^ Michael C.J. Putnam, Artifices of Eternity: Horace's Fourth Book of Odes (Cornell University Press, 1996), pp. 145–156 online.

Selected bibliography

Unless otherwise noted, dates, offices, and citations of ancient sources from

T.R.S. Broughton
, The Magistrates of the Roman Republic (American Philological Association, 1952), vol. 2, pp. 338–339, 362, 374, 382, 386, 426–427; vol. 3 (1986), pp. 48–49.

  • Syme, Ronald. The Roman Revolution. Oxford University Press, 1939, reissued 2002.
  • Syme, Ronald. The Augustan Aristocracy. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986.
Political offices
Preceded byas suffecti Roman consul
39 BC
With: Gaius Calvisius Sabinus 		Succeeded byas suffecti
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