Gaius Licinius Macer was an official and annalist

Annalists

Annalists , is the name given to a class of writers on Roman history, the period of whose literary activity lasted from the time of the Second Punic War to that of Sulla...

 of ancient Rome

Ancient Rome

Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....

.

A member of the ancient plebeian gens Licinia, he was tribune

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...

 in 73 BC

73 BC

Year 73 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Lucullus and Longinus...

; Sallust

Sallust

Gaius Sallustius Crispus, generally known simply as Sallust , a Roman historian, belonged to a well-known plebeian family, and was born at Amiternum in the country of the Sabines...

 mentions him agitating for the people's rights. He became 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...

 in 68

68 BC

Year 68 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Metellus/Vatia and Rex...

, but in 66

66 BC

Year 66 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Lepidus and Tullus...

 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...

 succeeded in convicting him of bribery and extortion, upon which Macer committed suicide.

Macer also wrote a history of Rome, in 16 books. The work is now lost, but from Livy

Livy

Titus 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...

 and Dionysius

Dionysius of Halicarnassus

Dionysius of Halicarnassus was a Greek historian and teacher of rhetoric, who flourished during the reign of Caesar Augustus. His literary style was Attistic — imitating Classical Attic Greek in its prime.-Life:...

, who both used it, we know that it began with the founding of the city, and that 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...

 appeared in book 2. Livy casts doubt on Macer's reliability, suggesting that he misrepresented events in order to glorify the Licinii, but notes that he quotes original sources, such as the Linen Rolls

Linen Rolls

The Linen Rolls, Libri Lintei in Latin, were a collection of books written on linen, a technique attributed to the Etruscans.These were records which, according to one recent theory, originated from notes jotted by officials on their linen clothing, allegedly contained antique lists of annual state...

.

His son Licinius Macer Calvus

Licinius Macer Calvus

Gaius Licinius Macer Calvus was an orator and poet of ancient Rome.Son of Licinius Macer and thus a member of the gens Licinia, he was a friend of the poet Catullus, whose style and subject matter he shared. Calvus' oratical style opposed the "Asian" school in favor of a simpler Attic model: he...

was a noted poet.