Decimus Junius Silanus (Consul 62 BC)
Encyclopedia
Decimus Junius M. f. D. n. Silanus was a 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...

 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...

. He may have been the son of Marcus Junius Silanus, consul in 109 BC. He was the stepfather of Marcus Junius Brutus
Brutus
Brutus is the cognomen of the Roman gens Junia, a prominent family of the Roman Republic. The plural of Brutus is Bruti, and the vocative form is Brute, as immortalized in the quotation "Et tu, Brute?", from Shakespeare's play, Julius Caesar....

, having married Brutus' mother, Servilia.

Political career

He was aedile
Aedile
Aedile was an office of the Roman Republic. Based in Rome, the aediles were responsible for maintenance of public buildings and regulation of public festivals. They also had powers to enforce public order. There were two pairs of aediles. Two aediles were from the ranks of plebeians and the other...

 in 70 BC, but he lost the election to be a consul of 63. He was successful the following year, and so in consequence of his being consul designatus was first asked for his opinion by Cicero
Cicero
Marcus 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...

 in the debate in the senate on the punishment of the Catilinarian conspirators
Catiline
Lucius Sergius Catilina , known in English as Catiline, was a Roman politician of the 1st century BC who is best known for the Catiline conspiracy, an attempt to overthrow the Roman Republic, and in particular the power of the aristocratic Senate.-Family background:Catiline was born in 108 BC to...

. At first he spoke in favor of "the supreme penalty" for the conspirators, but when Julius Caesar
Julius Caesar
Gaius Julius Caesar was a Roman general and statesman and a distinguished writer of Latin prose. He played a critical role in the gradual transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire....

 suggested life imprisonment, Silanus insisted that that was what he had really meant. As such, it was left to Cato the Younger
Cato the Younger
Marcus Porcius Cato Uticensis , commonly known as Cato the Younger to distinguish him from his great-grandfather , was a politician and statesman in the late Roman Republic, and a follower of the Stoic philosophy...

 to force through the decision to actually execute them.

He was consul in 62 with Lucius Licinius Murena
Lucius Licinius Murena
Lucius Licinius Murena was Roman consul in 62 BC. His father had the same name.At the end of the First Mithridatic War, he was left in Asia by Sulla in command of the two legions formerly controlled by Gaius Flavius Fimbria...

. They proposed the lex Junia Licinia
Lex Junia Licinia
The Lex Junia Licinia or Lex Junia et Licinia was an ancient Roman law produced in 62 BC that confirmed the similar Lex Caecilia Didia of 98 BC....

, which enacted that a rogatio
Rogatio
In Roman constitutional law, rogatio is the term for a legislative bill placed before an Assembly of the People in ancient Rome. The rogatio procedure underscores the fact that the Roman senate could issue decrees, but was not a legislative or parliamentarian body...

, a discussionary meeting, must be promulgated three nundinae, or market-intervals, before the people voted on it. It also confirmed the lex Caecilia Didia
Lex Caecilia Didia
The Lex Caecilia Didia was a law put into effect by the consuls Q. Caecilius Metellus Nepos and Titus Didius in the year 98 BCE. This law had two provisions. The first was a minimum period between proposing a Roman law and voting on it, and the second was a ban of miscellaneous provisions in a...

.
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