Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 2.djvu/725

Rh LAEVINUS. point Laevinus and the senate were at variance ; ing his long services, his name does not appear on the triumphal Fasti. Laevinus, indeed, did not refuse to nominate a dictator, but, that he might protract his own term of office, insisted upon making the nomination after his return to Sicily. This, however, was contrary to usage, which re- quired the nomination to be made within the limits of Italy. A tribune of the plebs, therefore, brought in a bill, with the concurrence of the senate, to compel Laevinus's obedience to its orders. But he left Rome abiuptly, and the nomination was at length made by his colleague Marcellus. Laevinus continued in Sicily as pro-consul throughout B. c. 209. His army consisted of the remains of Varro's and Cn. Fulvius Flaccus's legions, which, for their respective defeats by Hannibal at Cannae in B. c. 216, and at Herdonea in 212, were sentenced to remain abroad while the war lasted. To these he added a numerous force of Sicilians and Numidi- ans, and a fleet of seventy gallies. His government was vigilant and prosperous ; the island was ex- empt from invasion, and, by the revival of its agriculture, he was enabled to form magazines at Catana, and to supply Rome with corn. In B. c. 208 Laevinus, still pro-consul, crossed over with a hundred gallies to Africa, ravaged the neighbour- hood of Clupea, and, after repulsing a Punic fleet, returned with his booty to Lilybaeum. In the following year he repeated the expedition with equal success. His foragers swept round the walls of Utica, and he again defeated a squadron sent to cat off his retreat. In 206 he conducted the ar- mament back to Italy, and on the arrival of Mago in Liguria in the following year was stationed with the two city legions at Arretium in Etruria. Soon afterwards 'he was sent, with four other commis- sioners, to Delphi, and to the court of Attains I. at Pergamus, to fetch the Idaean mother to Italy. [Falto, Valerius, No. 3.1 In 204 he moved in the senate the repayment of the voluntary loan to the treasury made in his consulate six years before. In 20;i, in the debate on the terms to be granted to Carthage, Laevinus moved that the envoys be dismissed unheard, and the war be prosecuted. His counsel was followed ; and it marks Laevinus as belonging to the section of the aristocracy of Avhich the Scipios were the leaders. At the com- mencement of the first Macedonian war in 201 — 200, Laevinus was once more sent as propraetor, with a fleet and army, to Northern Greece, and his Hiport of Philip's preparations gave a new impulse to the exertions of the republic. He died in B. c. 200, and his sons Publius and Marcus honoured his memory with funeral games and gladiatorial combats, exhibited during lour successive days in the forum. (Polyb. viii. 3. § 6, ix. 27. $ 2, xxii, 1 2. § 1 1 ; Liv. xxiii. 24, 30, 32, 33, 34, 37, 3a, 4», xxiv. 10, 11, 20, 40, 44, xxv, 3, xxvi. 1, 22, 24, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 32, 36, 40, xxvii. 5, 7, 9, 22, 29, xxviii. 4, 10, 46, xxix. 11, 16, xxx. 23, xxxi. 3, 5, 50 ; Flor. ii. 7 ; Just. xxix. 4 ; Eutrop, iii. 12 ; Claud, de Del. Get. 395.) 3. C. Valerius Laevinus, son of the pre- ceding, was by the mother's side brother of M. Fulvius Nobilior, consul in B. c. 1 89. Laevinus accompanied his brother to the siege of Ambracia in that year, and the Aetolians, with whom he in- herited from his father ties of friendship, chose him for thoir patron with the consul in behalf of LAEVIUS. 711 the Ambraciots and the Aetolian lengiie generally. Fulvius allowed of his mediation, granted the Am- braciots and Aetolians unusually favourable terms, and sent him with their envoys to Rome, to dispose the senate and the people to ratify the peace. In B.C. 179 Laevinus was one of the four praetors appointed under the Lex Baebia (Liv. xl. 44 ; Fest. s. V. Rogat. ; comp. Meyer. Or. Rom. Fragm. p. 62), and obtained Sardinia for his province. In B. c. 176 Cn. Cornelius Scipio Hispallus died sud- denly, in his year of office, and Laeviiuis was ap- pointed consul in his room. Eager for military distinction, Laevinus left Rome only three days after his election, to take the command of the Li- gurian war. He triumphed over the Ligurians in B. c. 175. In B.C. 174 he was sent, with four other commissioners, to Delphi, to adjust some new dissensions among the Aetolians. In b. c 173 the senate despatched him to the Macedonian court, to watch the movements of Perseus ; and he was instructed to go round by Alexandreia, to renew the alliance of Rome with Ptolemy VI. Philometor. He returned from Greece in b. c. 1 72. In b. c. 169 Laevinus was one of several unsuccessful can- didates for the censorship. (Polyb. xxii. 12. § 10, 14. «S 2 ; Liv. xxxviii. 9, 10, xl. 44, xli. 25, xlii. 6, 17, xliii. 14.) 4. P. Valerius Laevinus, son of the pre- ceding, was one of the praetors in b. c. 177, and obtained for his province a part of Cisalpine Gaul. (Liv. xxxi. 50, xli. 8.) [W. B. D.] ^ LAE'VIUS. That a poet bearing this appella- tion ought to be included in a list of the more ob- scure Roman writers is generally admitted, but wherever the name appears in the received text of an ancient author it will invariably be found that some of the MSS. exhibit either Livius, or Laelius, or Naevius, or Novius, or Pacuvius, or several of these, or similar variations. On the other hand, a considerable number of fragments quoted by gram- marians from Ennius, Livius (Andronicus), Nae- vius, and the earlier bards, must, as internal evidence clearly proves, belong to a later epoch ; and many of them, it has been supposed, are in reality tlie property of Laevius ; but every circum- stance relating to his works and the age when he flourished is involved in such thick darkness that Vossius {De Poet. Lai. c. viii.) declared himself unable to establish any fact connected with his history except that he lived before the reign of Charlemagne ; while one or two scholars have called his very existence in question. There are in all perhaps only four passages in the classics from which we can be justified in drawing any con- clusion. Two are in Aulas Gellius (ii. 24, xix. 9, comp. 7), one in Apuleius (Apolog. p. 294, ed. Elmenhorst), and one in Ausonius (Farecbas. Cent. Nupt. praef.) From these we may infer, with tolerable security, that Laevius flourished during the first half of the century before the Christian era, being the contemporary of Hortensius, Mera- mius, Cinna, Catullus, Lucretius, and Cicero ; and that he was the author of a collection of lyrical pieces of a light amatory stamp, styled Eroto- paegnia, which were pronounced by critics to be deficient in simplicity (implicata), and in no way comparable to the easy flowing graces {Jluentes carminum deliciae) of the Teian Muse. A fragment extending to six lines has been pre- served by Apuleius {l. c), another of two lines by Gellius I I.e.), and many which may possibly be-
 * ind this is probably the cause why, notwithstand-