Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 2.djvu/1220

Rh 120S NOBILIOR. a fearful storm, which destroyed almost the whole fleet, and strewed the coast from Camarina to Pa- chynus with wrecks and corpses. Both consuls, however, escaped, and celebrated a triumph as pro- consuls in the following year (Polyb. i. 36, 37 ; Eutrop. ii. 22 ; Oros. iv. 9 ; Diod. xxiii. 14 ; Zonar. viii. 14). Respecting the date of this cam- paign, see Niebuhr, Hist of Rome, vol. iii. p, 591, and Arnold, Hist, of Rome, vol. ii. p. 593. n. 67. 2. M. FuLVius M. F. Ser. n. Nobilior, grand- son of the precedisig, was curule aedile B.C. 195, and praetor B.C. 193, when he obtained Further Spain as his province, with the title of proconsul. He remained in this country two years, and fought with great success against the nations that still resisted the Roman supremacy. He gained a victory over the united forces of the Vaccaei, Tec- tones, and Celtiberi, near the town of Toletum (Toledo), and took their king, Hilermus, prisoner, lie then obtained possession of the town of Tole- tum, which is the first time that this place is men- tioned in history. On his return to Rome in B. c. 191 he was granted the honour of an ovation. (Liv. xxxiii. 42, xxxiv. 54, 55, xxxv. 7, 22, xxxvi. 21, 39.) In b. c. 189 he was consul with M. Fulvius Nobilior, and received the conduct of the war against the Aetolians. He captured the strong town of Ambracia, and then compelled the Aetolians to sue for peace, which was granted them on favourable terms. Shortly afterwards he obliged the island of Cephallenia, which had been excluded from the terms of the peace, to submit to the dominion of Rome. He remained in his pro- vince for the next year as proconsul ; and on his return to Rome, in B.C. 187, celebrated a most splendid triumph. In the following year he ex- hibited for ten successive days the games which he had vowed in the Aetolian war, and which were the most magnificent that had yet been seen at Rome. There were venationes of lions and pan- thers ; and contests of athletae were now for the first time exhibited in the city. The conquest of Aetolia by this consul is also commemorated in the inscription of a statue discovered at Tusculum, from which place the Fulvii originally came. [FuL- VIA Gens.] (Polyb. xxii. 8 — 15 ; Liv. xxxvii, 47, 48, 50, xxxviii. 3—1 1, 28, 30, 35, xxxix. 4, 5, 22 ; Aurel. Vict, de Vir. III. 52 ; Orelli, Inscr. No. 662.) In B. c. 179 he was censor with M. Aemi- lius Lepidus, the pontifex maximus. The two censors had previously been at feud, but were re- conciled to one another upon their election, and discharged the duties of their office with unani- mity and concord. They executed many public works, which are mentioned by Livy. (Liv. xl. 45, 46, 51, xli. 2 ; Val. Max. iv. 2. § 1; Cic. de Prov. Cons. 9.) Fulvius Nobilior had a taste for literature and art ; he was a patron of the poet Ennius, who ac- companied him in his Aetolian campaign ; and he bi.'longed to that party among the Roman nobles who were introducing into the city a taste for Greek literature and refinement. He was, there- fore, an object of the attacks of Cato the Censor, who actually reproached him with having taken Ennius with him into Aetolia, and insinuated that he was corrupting the old Roman discipline by bestowing military crowns upon the soldiers for trivial reasons. Cato also made merry with his name, calling him Twoii/ior instead oi nobilior. (Cic. 2'usc. i. 2, Brut. 20, pro Arch. 1 1, de Orat. iii. 63.) NOBILIOR. Fulvius, in his censorship, erected a temple to Hercules and the Muses in the Circus Flaminius, as a proof that the state ought to cultivate the liberal arts, and adorned it with the paintings and statues which he had brought from Greece upon his conquest of Aetolia. He also set up Fasti in this temple, which are referred to by Macrobius. (Cic. pro Arch. I.e.; Plin. H. N. xxxv. 10. s. 36. § 4 ; Eumenius, Orat. pro Scholis Instaurand. 7. § 3 ; Macrob. Saturn, i. 12.) He left behind him two sons, both of whom obtained the consulship. [Nos. 3 and 4.] His brother, by his mother's side, was C. Valerius Laevinus, who accompanied him in his Aetolian campaign (Polyb. xxii. 12), and who was consul in B. c. 176. 3. M. Fulvius M. f. M. n. Nobilior, son of No. 2, was tribune of the plebs B.C. 171 (Liv. xlii. 32), curule aedile b. c. 166, the year in which the Andria of Terence was performed {Tit. Andr. Terent. QXidi consul B.C. 159, with Cn. Cornelius Dolabella. Of the events of his consulship we have no records ; but as the triumphal fasti assign him a triumph in the following year over the Eleates, a Ligurian people, he must have carried on war in Liguria. 4. Q. Fulvius M. p. M. n. Nobilior, son of No. 2, was consul b. c. 153 with T. Annius Luscus. Livy mentions (xxxix. 44) a Q. Fulvius Nobilior who was appointed in b. c. 184 one of the triumviri for founding the colonies of Potentia and Pisaurum ; and as Cicero says {Brut. 20) that Q. Nobilior, the son of the conqueror of the Aetolians, was a triumvir coloniae deducendae, though he does not mention the name of the colony, it would seem that the Q. Nobilior mentioned by Livy is the same as the one referred to by Cicero. But there are two objections to this natural conclusion : in the first place, it is exceedingly unlikely, and quite contrary to Roman practice, that such important duties as were involved in the foundation of a colony should have been entrusted to a person so young as Q. Nobilior must have been at that time, since he did not obtain the consulship for thirty- one years afterwards ; and in the second place, the Q. Fulvius M. f. who, says Livy (xl. 42), was elected triumvir epulo in b. c. 180, while still a boy {praeieaitatus), can hardly mean any one else than the son of the great M. Fulvius whose name occurs so often in that part of the historian's ivritings. A consideration of dates will make it almost certain that this Q. Fulvius M. f. must be the same as the consul of b. c. 153; for supposing him to have been sixteen when he was enrolled in the college of the epulones, he would have been forty-three when he was elected consul, the age at which a citizen could first obtain this honour. We there- fore conclude that the Q. Nobilior who was tri- umvir in b. c. 1 84 must be a different person from the consul of 153. The consuls of the j'ear B.C. 153 entered upon their office on the kalends of January, whereas up to this time the ides of March had been the day on which they took possession of their dignity. The formidable revolt of the Celtiberians is given as the reason of this alteration ; but whatever may have been the cause, the kalends of January continued from this time forth to be the first day of the con- sular year. (Cassiodorus and Marianus, Chron. ; Liv. Epit. 47, refers to this change, but the words are not intelligible as they stand. See the notes in Drakenborcli's edition.) Since the conquest of the