Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 2.djvu/710

Rh 696 LABI EN US. a specimen of his style, he would rank above Te- rence, and second only to Phiutus, in dramatic vigour, and Horace's depreciation of him {Sat. i. 10, 6) uii^fht stand beside Pope's sneer at Chaucer, and " such writing as is never read." But there is reason to infer that the diction of Laberius abounded in unauthorised words (Gell. xvi. 7) and in antitheses and verbal jokes (Sen. CW^r. 18), allowable in a farce-writer, but beneath the dig- nity of comedy. He was, however, evidently an original thinker, and made great impression on his contemporaries. (Niebuhr, Lectures on Rom. Hist- vol. ii. p. 169.) The fragments of Laberius are collected by Bothe, Poet. Seen. Latin, vol. v. pp. 202 — 218. A revised text of the prologue has been published, with a new fragment by Schneide- win, in the Rheinisches Museum for 1843, p. 6;32, &c. A writer of verses, named Laberius, is mentioned by Martial [Ep. vi. 14.) [W. B. D.] Q. LABE'RIUS DURUS, a tribune of the soldiers in Caesar's army, fell in battle in the second invasion of Britain, B. c. 54. He is by mistake called Labienus by Orosius. (Caes. B. G. v. 15 ; Oros. vi. 9.) LABE'RIUS MA'XIMUS was procurator of Judaea in A. D. 73, 74, the third and fourth years of Vespasian's reign. After the destruction of .Jerusalem the emperor sent Laberius orders to offer for sale all the lands in Judaea. (Joseph. Bell. Jiid. vii. 6", § 6.) A Laberius Maximus, whether the same is uncertain, was banished by Trajan on suspicion of aspiring to the purple (Spartian. //a- drian. 5 ) ; and a person of the same name is men- tioned by Martial {Ep. vi. 14) and by Pliny {Ep. X. 16). ^ [W.B. D.] LABIE'NUS, the name of a Roman family, which does not occur in history till the last cen- tury of the republic. Most modern writers say that Labienus was a cognomen of the Atia gens, but there is no authority for this in any ancient author. The name was first assigned to this gens by P. Manutius, but apparently on conjecture ; and although Spanheim {DePraest. et Usu Numism. vol. ii. pp. 11, 12) pointed out that there was no authority for this, the error has been continued down to the present day, as, for instance, in Orelli's Onomasticon Tulliaiium. 1. Q. Labienus, the uncle of T. Labienus [No. 2], joined Saturninus when he seized the capitol in B.C. 100, and perished along with the otiier conspirators on that occasion. It was under the pretence of avenging his death that his nephew accused llabirius of the crime of perduellio. (Cic. pro Rubir. 5, 7.) 2. T. Labienus was tribune of the plebs in b. c. 63, the year of Cicero's consulship ; and, under pretence of avenging his uncle's death, as is men- tioned above, he accused Rabirius of perduellio. The real reason, however, of his undertaking this ac- cusation was to please Julius Caesar, whose motives for bringing the aged Rabirius to triiil have been mentioned elsewhere. [Cabsar, p. 541.] Ra- birius was defended by Cicero, who was then ex- erting himself to please the senatoiial party, and who consequently speaks of the tribune with great contempt, and heaps upon him no measured terms of abuse. Being entirely devoted to Caesar's in- terests, Labienus introduced and carried a ple- biscitum, repealing the enactment of Sulla, which gave the college of pontifls the power of electing its members by co-optation, and restoring to the LABIENUS. people the right of electing them. It was in con- sequence of this new law that Caesar obtiiined the dignity of pontifex maximus this year. (Dion Cass, xxxvii. 26, 27, 37 ; Suet. Caes. 12, 13 ; Cic. pro Rabir. passim.) It was likewise no doubt at Caesar's suggestion, who was anxious to gratify Pompey, that Labienus and his colleague T. Am- pins Balbus proposed those honours to Pompej'-, which have been detailed elsewhere. [Vol. I. p. 455, a.] (Comp. Veil. Pat. ii. 40.) All these services did not go unrewarded. When Caesar, after his consulship, went into his province of Transalpine Gaul in b. c. 58, he took Labienus with him as his legatus, and treated him with distinguished favour. We find that Labienus had the title of pro praetore (Caes. B. G. i. 21), which title had doubtless been conferred upon him by Caesar's influence, that he might in the absence of the proconsul take his place, and discharge his duties. Labienus continued with Caesar during a great part of his campaigns in Gaul, and showed himself an able and active officer. He was with Caesar throughout the whole of his first campaign (b. c. 58). According toAppian {Celt. 3, 15) and Plutarch {Caes. 18j, it was Labienus who cut to pieces the Tigurini ; but Caesar ascribes the merit of this to himself (B. G. i. 12); and as he never manifests a disposition to appropriate to himself the exploits of his officers, his authority ought to be preferred to that of the former writers. He speaks, moreover, of the services of Labienus in this campaign ; and after the conquest of the Helvetii and the Germans we find him leaving Labienus in command of the troops in their winter-quarters, while he himself went into Cis- alpine Gaul to discharge his civil duties in this province. (Caes. B. G. i. 10, 22, 54.) As we have no further mention of Labienus in Gaul for the next three years, it is probable that he quitted the army when Caesar returned to it, after the winter of B. c. 58. His absence was su|)- plied by P. Crassus, the son of the triumvir ; but when the latter left Gaul, in B. c. 54, in order to join his father in the fatal expedition against the Parthians, Caesar may perhaps have sent for La- bienus, or the prospect of honour and rewards may have again attracted him to the camp of his patron. However this may be, we find Labienus again in Gaul in B. c, 54, in the winter of which year he was stationed with a legion among the Remi, on the confines of the Treviri. Here he defeated the latter people, who had come under the command of Induciomarus, to attack his camp, and their leader fell in the battle. Still later in the winter La- bienus gained anothergreat battle over the Treviri, and reduced the people to submission. (Caes. B. G. v. 24, 53—58, vi. 7, 8 ; Dion Cass. xl. 11, 31.) In the great campaign against Vercingetorix in B. c. 52, which was the most arduous but at the same time the most brilliant of all Caesar's cam- paigns in Gaul, Labienus played a distinguished part. He was sent by Caesar with four legions against the Senones and Parisii, and took up his head-quarters at Agendicum. From this place he marched against Lutetia, which was burnt at his approach ; and in his subsequent retreat to Agen- dicum, which was rendered necessary by the revolt of the Aedui and the rising of the Bellovaci, his conduct is greatly praised by Caesar. He sub- sequently reached Agendicum in Kifcty, after J