Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 2.djvu/206

Rh 192 GABINIANUS. captain of the body-guard, and gave himsalf up to the luxurious profusion of the time. Juvenal describes him (iv. 112) as dreaming of battles in his marble house — " Fuscus marmorea meditatus praelia villa." Domitian, however, converted his dreams into re- ality, by sending him against the Dacians, who, under their king Decebalus, had recently defeated a Roman army, and were ravaging the province of Maesia. Fuscus passed the Danube, but suffered himself to be surprised by the Dacians, who de- stroyed his army, and captured his baggage and standards. Martial wrote an epitaph on Fuscus {Ep. vi. 76), in which he refers to the Dacian campaign. (Tac. Hist. ii. 86, iii, 4, 12, 42, QQ^ iv. 44 ; Suet. Domit. 6 ; Dion Cass. Ixviii. 9 ; Oros. vii. 10 ; Tillemont, Hist, des Empereurs, vol. iii. p. 172 ; Francke, Gesch. Trojans^ p. 80.) Pliny {Ep. vii. 9) addressed a letter to Cornelius Fuscus, recommending translation as one of the best methods of attaining a pure, impressive, and copious style. But as his correspondent was pre- paring himself for the business of the forum, he can scarcely have been the Fuscus of Vespasian's time. He was probably the son. [W. B. D.] FUSCUS, GELL'IUS, wrote some account of the life of Tetricus Junior, and is quoted by Tre- bellius Pollio. ( Tetric. Jan. 25. ) FUSUS, a surname of the two families, Me- DULLiNUS and Pacilus, of the Furia Gens, Be- sides these, there are two members of the Furia Gens who occur in the Fasti, without any other surname than that of Fusus, but these probably belonged either to the MeduUini or the Pacili, and must not be regarded as forming a separate family. They are : — 1. M. FuRius Fusus, consular tribune in b. c. 403. (Fasti Capitol. ; Diod. xiv. 35.) Instead of hira, Livy (v. 1) gives M. Postumius. This M. Furius Fusus must not be confounded with the great M. Furius Camillus, whose first consular tri- bunate Livy (/. c.) erroneously places in this j^ear, but which in all probability belongs to B. c. 401. [Camillus, No. 1.] 2. Agrippa Furius Fusus, consular tribune in B. c. 391, the year before the taking of Rome by the Gauls. (Liv. v. 32 ; Fasti Capitol.) G. GABAEUS (raga?os), ruler of the Lesser or Hellespontine Phrygia, is mentioned by Xenophon {Gyrop. ii. 1, § 5) as one of the allies of the Assy- rians against Cyrus and (the supposed) Cyaxares IL [Cyrus.] On the defeat of the Assyrians, Gabaeus made the best of his way back to his own country. {Cyrop. iv. 2. § 30.) [E. E.] GABI'NIA GENS, plebeian. The name does not occur earlier than the second century b. c. There were no real family names in this gens, but only a few surnames, namely, Capito (Cumber), SiSKNNA, which are accordingly given under Ga- binius. [J. T. G.] GABINIA;NUS, sex. JU'LIUS, a celebrated Roman rhetorician, who taught rhetoric in Gaul in the time of Vespasian. All further information concerning him is lost, but we know that he was gjioken of by Suetonius, in his work de Claris GABINIUS. Metoribus. (Tac. de Orat. 26 ; Euseb. Chron. ad Vespas. ann. 8.) [L. S.l GABI'NIUS. 1. a. ? Gabinius, in b. c. 167, was placed by L. Anicius in the command of a garrison at Scodra in Illyricum, after the subju- gation of king Gentius. (Liv. xlv. 26.) 2. A. Gabinius, was tribune of the plebs, in B. c. 139, and introduced the first Lex Tcdtellaria^ which substituted the ballot for open voting {Diet, of Ant. s. V. Tabellaricce Leges.) Porcius Latro (De- clamat. c. Catilinam^ c. 19) mentions a Lex Ga- binia, by which clandestine assemblies in the city were punishable with death, but it is not known to what age this law belongs, and even its exist- ence has been doubted. (Heinec. Anti(f. Rom. iv. tit. 17. § 47 ; Dieck, Versuclie iiber das Criminal- recht der Homer, Halle, 1 822, pp. 73, 74.) 3. A.? Gabinius, was legatus in the Social War, and, in b. c. 89, after a successful campaign against the Marsi and Lucani, lost his life in a blockade of the enemy's camp. (Liv. Epit. 76 ; Flor. iii. 18. § 13 ; Oros. v. 18, calls him Caius.) 4. A. Gabinius, fought at Chaeroneia in the army of Sulla as military tribune, and in the beginning of b. c. 81, was despatched by Sulla to Asia with instructions to Murena to end the war with Mithridates. He was a moderate and ho- nourable man. (Plut. Sull. 16, 17 ; Appian, Mithr. 66 ; Cic. pro Leg. Manil. 3.) 5. A. Gabinius, of uncertain parentage, was addicted in youth to expensive pleasures, and gave way to the seductions of dice, wine, and women. His carefully curled hair was fragrant with un- guents, and his cheeks were coloured with rouge. He was a proficient in the dance, and his house resounded with music and song. If we may trust the angry invective of Cicero {pro Seod. 8, 9, post Red. in Sen. 4 — 8, in Pison. 1 1, pro Domo. 24, 48), he kept the most vicious company, and led the most impure and profligate life. Having dissi- pated his fortune by such a course of conduct, he looked to official station as the means of repairing his shattered finances. In B. c. 66 he was made tribune of the plebs, and moved that the command of the war against the pirates should be given to Pompey. The proposed law did not name Pompey, but it plainly pointed to him, and was calculated to make him almost an absolute monarch. Among other provisions, it directed that the people should elect a commander whose imperium should extend over the whole of the Mediterranean, and to a dis- tance of fifty miles inland from its coasts, — who should take such sums of money as he might think fit out of the public treasures, and should have a fleet of 200 sail, with unlimited powers of raising soldiers and seamen. This proposition was very pleasing to the people, on account of the scarcity of provisions, which the interruption of commerce by the pirates had occasioned ; but it was equally dis- pleasing to the senators, who distrusted the am- bition of Pompey. Party-spirit was carried to such a height that serious riots ensued. Gabinius was in danger of his life from an attack of the senators. The senators, in turn, were assailed by the popu- lace, who would perhaps have sacrificed the consul, Calpurnius Piso, to their fiiry, had not Gabinius effected his rescue, dreading the odium and severe re-action which such a catastrophe would have oc- casioned. When the day of the comitia for put- ting the rogatio to the vote arrived, Gabinius made himself remarkable by his answers to the affected