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The praetorship and consular candidacy of L. Rupilius

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

F. X. Ryan
Affiliation:
University of Witwatersrand

Extract

The praetorship of L. Rupilius is of great importance only to the biography of L. Rupilius. His consular candidacy has a wider significance, since his repulsa represents a reverse for his most prominent supporter, Scipio Aemilianus.

As the praetorship is not explicitly mentioned in the sources, its terminus non post quem is fixed by the consular candidacy. Scholarly treatment of the question is hard to come by. The terminus post quem for the candidacy of Lucius is his brother's candidacy (in 133); the terminus ante quem, Scipio's death (in 129): Cicero (Lael. 73) tells us that Scipio brought about the election of P. Rupilius, but failed to make his brother Lucius consul. Broughton classified L. Rupilius as ‘Pr. by 133 ’, and in this seems to have followed Münzer, who indeed considered L. Rupilius ‘Praetor gegen 620 = 134’, but added that he was a candidate ‘urn das Consulat für 623 =131 oder noch eher für 624 = 130’. Of course, if L. Rupilius was a candidate in 131 for a consulship of 130, then he was praetor by 133. A candidacy in 1294 can be safely ruled out: Scipio died in the first half of the year, in spring or early summer. But we cannot rule out candidacy in 130 for 129: Scipio might have preferred L. Rupilius to either consul of that year. The latest possible date for the praetorship of L. Rupilius is therefore 132.

Type
Shorter Notes
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1995

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References

1 Since his praetorship is not attested, L. Rupilius was not included in the lists compiled by Wehrmann, P., Fastipraetorii ab a. u. DLXXXVIII ada. u. DCCX (Berlin, 1875)Google Scholar, and by Maranca, F. Stella, ‘Google ScholarFasti Praetori dal 366 al 44 av. Cr.MAL * 2 (1927)Google Scholar. Orelli, J. C. and Baiter, J. G., Onomasticon Tullianum (Zurich, 1838Google Scholar; vol. vii of M. Tullii Ciceronis Opera), p. 516, did not mention the praetorship and did not date the consular candidacy. In his commentary on Lael. 73, Lahmeyer, G. (Leipzig, 1862)Google Scholar placed the praetorship in 147; it was placed in 146 by G. Tischer (Leipzig, 1850) and in 147 by Dougan, T. W. and Henry, R. M. (Cambridge, 1934) in their commentaries on Tusc. 4.40Google Scholar. This dating looks like a careless synchronization of the praetorship with the first consulship of Scipio, but perhaps L. Rupilius was confused with another man. Both Tischer and Dougan gave P. Rupilius (cos. 132) the cognomen ‘Lupus’, and there was a ‘L. Lupus’ in office in 147–146: the censor L. Cornelius Lentulus Lupus. The cognomen must have been fastened on the consul of 132 since the manuscripts of Tusc, 4.40, correctly emended by Manutius, P., give the nomen as ‘Rutilius’ (a detailed apparatus is provided in the edition of Giusta, M. [Torino, 1984])Google Scholar; a P. Rutilius Lupus was consul in 90. The consul of 132 is not known to have borne any cognomen; cf. Badian, E., ‘The Consuls, 179–49 B.C.’, Chiron 20 (1990), 381Google Scholar.

2 Broughton, T. R. S., MRR 2.612Google Scholar; cf. 1.493.

3 Münzer, , Rupilius 4, RE 1A (1914), 1229Google Scholar.

4 The possibility of candidacy in 129 is implied by the wording of Gundel and Broughton, who identified Lucius as a candidate ‘zwischen 132–129’; Gundel, cf. H. G., Der Kleine Pauly (Munich, 1972), iv. 1469Google Scholar; Broughton, , MRR 1.493Google Scholar; id., Candidates Defeated in Roman Elections: Some Ancient Roman ‘Also-Rons’ (Philadelphia, 1991), p. 16.

5 Astin, Cf. A. E., Scipio Aemilianus (Oxford, 1967), p. 245Google Scholar (Appendix I: ‘The Dates of Scipio' Birth and Death’). If a consul presided over the elections in 129, then they were held after the triumph of C. Sempronius Tuditanus on 1 October.

6 Although C. Sempronius Tuditanus seems not to have been a Gracchan (App. B.C. 1.19), the political views of his colleague M'. Aquillius are not known. Cf. Astin, , op. cit., p. 238 n. 5Google Scholar.

7 Lange, L., Romische Alterthümer iii. 19, 620Google Scholar; Evans, R. J., ‘Candidates and Competition in Consular Elections at Rome Between 218 and 49 B.C.’, AClass 34 (1991), 118, 128 n. 44Google Scholar; Astin, op. cit., p. 232 n. 4.

8 The other consul of 131, L. Valerius Flaccus, though he quarreled with his colleague, might have been a Gracchan; cf. Astin, , op. cit., pp. 192 n. 3, 232Google Scholar. One consul of 130, M. Perperna, was ‘almost certainly’ a Gracchan; his colleague L. Cornelius Lentulus probably was not. Cf. Astin, , op. cit., pp. 192, 238Google Scholar.