Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 2.djvu/1136

Rh 1122 MURENA. Tyrannio was made prisoner, and he was given to ^Iu^ena at his request, who thereupon made him free, by which act it was implied that he had been a slave. Plutarch {LuculL 19) blames Murena for his conduct in this matter, and adds that it was not in this instance only that Murena showed himself far inferior to his general in honourable feeling and conduct. Murena followed Tigranes in his retreat from Tigranocerta to the Taurus, and took all his baggage, and he was left to maintain the siege of Tigranocerta while Lucullus marched from before that city to check Tigranes, who was again in sight of Tigranocerta with a large army. He returned to Rome before the end of the war, and was one of ten commissioners who were sent out to settle affairs in the countries conquered by Lucullus. (Cic. ad Att. xiii. 6.) In B. c. 65, he was praetor with Serv. Sulpicius, and had the jurisdictio, while Sulpicius had the unpopular function of presiding at the quaestio peculatus (Cic. pro Mure7i. 20). Murena expended con- siderable sums on the public exhibitions (ludi Apollinares), which he had to superintend during his office. (Plin. H.N. xxxiii. 3 ; Cic. pro Muren. 18, 19.) After his praetorship (b. c. 64) he was propraetor of Gallia Cisalpina, where his brother Caius served under him, and he settled the disputes between debtor and creditor in a satisfactory and equitable way, as Cicero says. In B.C. 63 he was a candidate for the consulship, and was elected with D. Junius Silanus. Serv. Sulpicius, an unsuccessful candidate, instituted a prosecution against Murena for bribery {ambitus), and he was supported in the matter by M. Porcius Cato, Cn. Postumius, and Serv. Sulpicius the younger (Plut. Cat. Min. 21, Cic. 35, and the oration of Cicero for Murena). Murena was de- fended by Q. Hortensius, M. Tullius Cicero, who was then consul, and M, Licinius Crassus. The speech of Cicero, which is extant, is of the same class as his later speech in defence of Cn. Plancius, who was also tried for ambitus. The time when the speech for Murena was delivered is shown by the fact that Catiline had then left the city, but the conspirators who remained behind had not been punished : it was therefore delivered in the latter pyt of November of the unreformed calendar. Tne orator handled his subject skilfully, by making merry with the formulae and the practice of the lawyers, to which class Sulpicius belonged, and with the paradoxes of the Stoics, to which sect Cato had attached himself. Yet he did not attack the cha- racter and motives of either Sulpicius or Cato, which would have been injurious to his client, for both the prosecutors were men above suspicion. But he defended the private character of Murena against the imputations that had been cast on him, and he represents him as a man of merit in his public and private capacity, and with more virtues than we can readily give him credit for. As in the oration for Cn. Plancius he says comparatively- little on the main charge, which, indeed, it was the business of the prosecutors to prove ; and he rather labours to show that there were sufficient reasons for his election without supposing that he had pur- chased votes. He shows that under present cir- cumstances, with Catiline at the head of an army in the field, and his associates in the city, it was necessary to have a vigorous consul to protect the state in the coming year. Murena was acquitted. (Plut. Cat. Min. 21.) MURENA. Early in the month of December following Cicero moved in the senate the question of punishing the conspirators who had been seized. Silanus, who was first asked his opinion, was for putting them to death, and Murena ultimately voted tlie same way (Cic. ad Att. xii. 21). The consulship of Silanus and Murena was a stormy period, owing to the agitation of Q. Metellus Nepos, who wished for the return of Pompeius to oppose the party of the Optimates. The disturbances in Rome grew so high that the senate empowered the consuls in the usual form to preserve the safety of the com- monwealth. Cato, who was a colleague of Metellus, was opposed to the consuls, but Murena protected him in an affray ( Plut. Cat. Min. 28 ). In this consulship was passed the Lex Licinia Junia, which enacted that a lex should be promulgated for three nundinae before the people voted upon it. There is no mention of Murena having a province after his consulship, and nothing more is said about him. His stepson, L. Natta, was the son of Murena's wife by a previous husband, probably one Pinarius Natta, as Drumann shows (vol. ii. p. 370). 6. C. Licinius Murena, the brother of No. 5, and his legatus in Cisalpine Gallia, which he ad- ministered in the year after his brother's adminis- tration, and seized some of the band of Catiline (Sail. B. C. 42), before the defeat and death of their leader. 7. A. Terentius Varro M urena, was adopted by A. Terentius Varro, whose name he took, ac- cording to the custom in such cases. Drumann conjectures that he was the son of the consul, which seems probable. In the civil wars he is said to have lost his property, and that C. Proculeius, a Roman eques, gave him a share of his own pro- perty. This Proculeius is called the brother of Varro, but, if we take the words of Horace literally {Carm. ii. 2), Proculeius had more than one brother. Drumann conjectures that this Proculeius was a son of C. Licinius Murena, the brother of the consul, who had been adopted by one Pro- culeius. This would make Proculeius the cousin of Varro. It was common enough among the Romans to call cousins by the name of brothers (frater patruelis, and frater). Murena was sent by Augustus, in B. c. 25, to attack the Salassi in the Alps : he reduced the people to obedience, sold the male prisoners for slaves, and the chief part of the territory was distributed among Praetorian soldiers, who founded the town of Augusta, now Aosta, in the province of Aosta, one of the eight divisions of the con- tinental dominion of the king of Sardinia (Dion Cass. liii. 25 ; Stiab. p. 206, ed. Casaub.). Murena was named consul suifectus for B. c. 23. In B. c. 22 he was involved in the conspiracy of Fannius Caepio, and was condemned to death and executed, notwithstanding the intercession of Proculeius and Terentia, the sister of Murena, Dion Cassius (liv. 3), when speaking of the death of Murena, calls hini Licinius Murena, though he had already (liii. 25) called him Terentius Varro. Such con- fusion is common enough with the Roman writers, when they are speaking of adopted persons. Horace {Carm. ii. 10) addresses Murena by the name of Licinius, and probably intended to give him some advice as to being more cautious in his speech and conduct. The authorities for the Licinii Murenae are