Curius Dentatus
Encyclopedia
Roman consul
A consul served in the highest elected political office of the Roman Republic.Each year, two consuls were elected together, to serve for a one-year term. Each consul was given veto power over his colleague and the officials would alternate each month...
and a plebeian
Plebs
The plebs was the general body of free land-owning Roman citizens in Ancient Rome. They were distinct from the higher order of the patricians. A member of the plebs was known as a plebeian...
hero of the Roman Republic
Roman Republic
The Roman Republic was the period of the ancient Roman civilization where the government operated as a republic. It began with the overthrow of the Roman monarchy, traditionally dated around 508 BC, and its replacement by a government headed by two consuls, elected annually by the citizens and...
, noted for ending the Samnite War. According to Pliny
Pliny the Elder
Gaius Plinius Secundus , better known as Pliny the Elder, was a Roman author, naturalist, and natural philosopher, as well as naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and personal friend of the emperor Vespasian...
, he was born with teeth, thus earning the cognomen
Cognomen
The cognomen nōmen "name") was the third name of a citizen of Ancient Rome, under Roman naming conventions. The cognomen started as a nickname, but lost that purpose when it became hereditary. Hereditary cognomina were used to augment the second name in order to identify a particular branch within...
Dentatus, "Toothy."
Dentatus was a tribune of the plebs
Tribune
Tribune was a title shared by elected officials in the Roman Republic. Tribunes had the power to convene the Plebeian Council and to act as its president, which also gave them the right to propose legislation before it. They were sacrosanct, in the sense that any assault on their person was...
sometime between 298 and 291 BC. As tribune, he foiled efforts by the interrex
Interrex
The Interrex was literally a ruler "between kings" during the Roman Kingdom and the Roman Republic. He was in effect a short-term regent....
Appius Claudius Caecus
Appius Claudius Caecus
Appius Claudius Caecus was a Roman politician from a wealthy patrician family. He was dictator himself and the son of Gaius Claudius Crassus, dictator in 337 BC.-Life:...
to keep plebeian candidates out of the consular elections. If his tribunate is dated to 291, his actions advanced his own candidacy, but since Appius served three times as interrex, the earliest date accords better with the timeline of Dentatus's own career.
Dentatus served his first term as consul
Consul
Consul was the highest elected office of the Roman Republic and an appointive office under the Empire. The title was also used in other city states and also revived in modern states, notably in the First French Republic...
in 290 BC, during which time he defeated both the Samnites and Sabines and celebrated two triumph
Roman triumph
The Roman triumph was a civil ceremony and religious rite of ancient Rome, held to publicly celebrate and sanctify the military achievement of an army commander who had won great military successes, or originally and traditionally, one who had successfully completed a foreign war. In Republican...
s. Returning home he took on a massive public works project, partly draining Lake Velinus.
In 283, Dentatus filled the praetor
Praetor
Praetor was a title granted by the government of Ancient Rome to men acting in one of two official capacities: the commander of an army, usually in the field, or the named commander before mustering the army; and an elected magistratus assigned varied duties...
ship (or possibly the consulship) of L. Caecilius Metellus Denter
Lucius Caecilius Metellus Denter
Lucius Caecilius Metellus Denter was consul in 284 BC, and praetor the year after. In this capacity he fell in the war against the Senones, and was succeeded by Manius Curius Dentatus....
after the latter was killed in the Battle of Arretium
Battle of Arretium
The Battle of Arretium was fought in 284 BC between the Roman Republic and some Celtic tribes, mainly the Senones and the Boii. Lucius Caecilius Metellus Denter was the commander of the Roman army as a Consul...
. Polybius
Polybius
Polybius , Greek ) was a Greek historian of the Hellenistic Period noted for his work, The Histories, which covered the period of 220–146 BC in detail. The work describes in part the rise of the Roman Republic and its gradual domination over Greece...
says Dentatus drove the Gauls from their territory, clearing the way for the establishment of a colony
Colonia (Roman)
A Roman colonia was originally a Roman outpost established in conquered territory to secure it. Eventually, however, the term came to denote the highest status of Roman city.-History:...
at Sena.
As consul again in 275 BC, Dentatus fought Pyrrhus
Pyrrhus of Epirus
Pyrrhus or Pyrrhos was a Greek general and statesman of the Hellenistic era. He was king of the Greek tribe of Molossians, of the royal Aeacid house , and later he became king of Epirus and Macedon . He was one of the strongest opponents of early Rome...
in the inconclusive Battle of Beneventum which nevertheless forced Pyrrhus out of Italy. As a result, he held a consecutive consulship, defeating the Lucani
Lucani
Lučani is a town and municipality located in the Dragačevo region within the Moravica District of Serbia . The population of the town is 3,425, while population of the municipality was 20,855....
in the following year and earning an ovation
Ovation
The ovation was a lower form of the Roman triumph. Ovations were granted, when war was not declared between enemies on the level of states, when an enemy was considered basely inferior or when the general conflict was resolved with little to no bloodshed or danger to the army itself.The general...
. He was censor
Censor (ancient Rome)
The censor was an officer in ancient Rome who was responsible for maintaining the census, supervising public morality, and overseeing certain aspects of the government's finances....
in 272, and in 270 he was elected as one of two commissioners to oversee construction of the Anio Vetus, Rome's second aqueduct, for which he used his personal share of the booty from his recent victories. He died during the project, which was completed under his fellow commissioner M. Fulvius Flaccus
Marcus Fulvius Flaccus (consul 264 BC)
Marcus Fulvius Flaccus was a consul in 264 BC. In the tradition of Livy his praenomen is "Quintus".In his consulship Fulvius Flaccus brought the reduction of Volsinii to an end and celebrated a triumph. He also conquered Velzna, an Etruscan city in central Italy, in 264 BC...
.
Dentatus is supposed to have been incorruptible and frugal; the story was that when the Samnites sent ambassadors with expensive gifts in an attempt to influence him in their favor, they found him sitting by the hearth roasting turnip
Turnip
The turnip or white turnip is a root vegetable commonly grown in temperate climates worldwide for its white, bulbous taproot. Small, tender varieties are grown for human consumption, while larger varieties are grown as feed for livestock...
s. He refused the gifts, saying that he preferred ruling the possessors of gold over possessing it himself. Although the truth of this story is unclear — it may have been an invention of Cato
Cato the Elder
Marcus Porcius Cato was a Roman statesman, commonly referred to as Censorius , Sapiens , Priscus , or Major, Cato the Elder, or Cato the Censor, to distinguish him from his great-grandson, Cato the Younger.He came of an ancient Plebeian family who all were noted for some...
— it was the inspiration for a number of painting
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
s by Jacopo Amigoni
Jacopo Amigoni
Jacopo Amigoni , also named Giacomo Amiconi, was an Italian painter of the late-Baroque or Rococo period, who began his career in Venice, but traveled and was prolific throughout Europe, where his sumptuous portraits were much in demand....
, Govert Flinck
Govert Flinck
Govert Teuniszoon Flinck was a Dutch painter of the Dutch Golden Age.-Life:Born at Kleve, he was apprenticed by his father to a silk mercer, but having secretly acquired a passion for drawing, was sent to Leeuwarden, where he boarded in the house of Lambert Jacobszoon, a Mennonite, better known...
, and others.
His praenomen
Praenomen
The praenomen was a personal name chosen by the parents of a Roman child. It was first bestowed on the dies lustricus , the eighth day after the birth of a girl, or the ninth day after the birth of a boy...
is sometimes given erroneously as Marcus because the standard abbreviation of Manius (M'.) is confused with the M. that abbreviates Marcus.
The Dutch Study Association 'S.V.T.B. Curius' at Delft University of Technology
Delft University of Technology
Delft University of Technology , also known as TU Delft, is the largest and oldest Dutch public technical university, located in Delft, Netherlands...
is named after him.
Sources
- PlinyPliny the ElderGaius Plinius Secundus , better known as Pliny the Elder, was a Roman author, naturalist, and natural philosopher, as well as naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and personal friend of the emperor Vespasian...
vii. 16 - FlorusFlorusFlorus, Roman historian, lived in the time of Trajan and Hadrian.He compiled, chiefly from Livy, a brief sketch of the history of Rome from the foundation of the city to the closing of the temple of Janus by Augustus . The work, which is called Epitome de T...
ii. 18 - Juvenal xi. 78
- PolybiusPolybiusPolybius , Greek ) was a Greek historian of the Hellenistic Period noted for his work, The Histories, which covered the period of 220–146 BC in detail. The work describes in part the rise of the Roman Republic and its gradual domination over Greece...
ii. 19 - Eutropius ii. 9, 14
- LivyLivyTitus Livius — known as Livy in English — was a Roman historian who wrote a monumental history of Rome and the Roman people. Ab Urbe Condita Libri, "Chapters from the Foundation of the City," covering the period from the earliest legends of Rome well before the traditional foundation in 753 BC...
, epitome, 11-14 - PlutarchPlutarchPlutarch then named, on his becoming a Roman citizen, Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus , c. 46 – 120 AD, was a Greek historian, biographer, essayist, and Middle Platonist known primarily for his Parallel Lives and Moralia...
, Pyrrhus, 25 - CiceroCiceroMarcus Tullius Cicero , was a Roman philosopher, statesman, lawyer, political theorist, and Roman constitutionalist. He came from a wealthy municipal family of the equestrian order, and is widely considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists.He introduced the Romans to the chief...
, De Senectute, 16 - Valerius MaximusValerius MaximusValerius Maximus was a Latin writer and author of a collection of historical anecdotes. He worked during the reign of Tiberius .-Biography:...
iv. 3, 5, vi. 3, 4