Acilius
- the name of several Romans, among whom was M' Acilius Glabrio, trib. pleb., by whom the severe law de pecuniis repetundis was introduced, Cic. Verr. 1, 9 and 17.—C. Acilius Glabrio, the historian, Cic. Off. 3, 32, 115.
- —Hence, Ăcīlĭus, a, um, adj., Acilian: lex, Cic. Verr. 1, 1.
- 1. M’. ~ Glabrio, consul in 191 v. Chr., overwinnaar van de Seleucide Antiochus III de Grote bij Thermopylae (191); — adj. Acīliānus, a, um;
- 2. C. ~ Glabrio, rond 160 v. Chr., schrijver v.e. geschiedenis v.d. 2e Pun. oorlog in het Gr., die door Claudius Quadrigarius in het Lat. is vertaald;
- 3. M’. ~ Glabrio, volkstribuun in 122 v. Chr., bekend door een wet de repetundis (lex Acilia).
C. F. L.N., was tribune of the plebs in B. C. 201, when he opposed the claim of Cn. Corn. Lentulus, one of the consuls of that year, to the province of Africa, which a unanimous vote of the tribes had already decreed to P. Scipio Africanus I. (Liv. 30.40.) In the following year Glabrio was appointed commissioner of sacred rites (decemvir sacrorum) in the room of M. Aurelius Cotta, deceased (31.50). He was praetor in B. C. 196, having presided at the Plebeian Games in the Flaminian Circus; and from the fines for encroachment on the demesne lands he consecrated bronze statues to Ceres and her offspring Liber and Libera (33.25, comp. 3.55; Cic. de Nat. Deor. 2.24) at the end of 197. Glabrio was praetor peregrinus (Liv. 33.24, 26), and quelled an insurrection of the praedial slaves in Etruria, which was so formidable as to require the presence of one of the city legions. (Liv. 33.36.) In B. C. 193 he was an unsuccessful competitor for the consulship, which, however, he obtained in 191. (35.10, 24.) In this year Rome declared war against Antiochus the Great, king of Syria [Antiochus III.]; and the commencement of hostilities with the most powerful monarch of Asia was thought to demand unusual religious solemnities. In the allotment of the provinces, Greece, the seat of war, fell to Glabrio; but before he took the field he was directed by the senate to superintend the sacred ceremonies and processions, and to vow, if the campaign were prosperous, extraordinary games to Jupiter, and offerings to all the shrines in Rome. (Liv. 36.1, 2.)
Glabrio, to whom the senate had assigned, besides the usual consular army of two legions, the troops already quartered in Greece and Macedonia, appointed the month of May and the city of Brundisium as the time and place of rendezvous. From thence he crossed over to Apollonia, at the head of 10,000 foot, 2,000 horse, and 15 elephants, with power, if needful, to levy in Greece an additional force of 5000 men. (Liv. 36.14; Appian. Syr. 17.) He made Larissa in Thessaly his headquarters, from which, in co-operation with his ally, Philip II., king of Macedonia, he speedily reduced to obedience the whole district between the Cambunian mountain chain and mount Oeta. Limnaea, Pellinaeum, Pharsalus, Pherae, and Scotussa, expelled the garrisons of Antiochus, and his allies the Athamanes; Philip of Megalopolis, a pretender to the crown of Macedonia, was sent in chains to Rome; and Amynander, the king of the Athamanes, was driven from his kingdom. (Liv., Appian, ll. cc.)
Antiochus, alarmed at Glabrio's progress, entrenched himself strongly at Thermopylae; but although his Aetolian allies occupied the passes of mount Oeta, the Romans broke through his outposts, and cut to pieces or dispersed his army. Boeotia and Euboea next submitted to Glabrio: he reduced Lamia and Heracleia at the foot of Oeta, and in the latter city took prisoner the Aetolian Damocritus, who the year before had threatened to bring the war to the banks of the Tiber. The Aetolians now sent envoys to Glabrio at Lamia. They proposed an unconditional surrender of their nation "to the faith of Rome." The term was ambiguous; Glabrio put the strictest interpretation upon it (comp. Liv. 7.31), and when the envoys remonstrated, threatened then with chains and the dungeon. His officers reminded Glabrio that their character as ambassadors was sacred, and he consented to grant the Aetolians a truce of ten days. During that time, however, the Aetolians received intelligence that Antiochus was preparing to renew the war. They concentrated their forces therefore at Naupactus, in the Corinthian gulf, and Glabrio hastened to invest the place. (Plb. 20.9, 10; Liv. 36.28.) His march from Lamia to Naupactus lay over the highest ridge of Oeta; a handful of men might have held it against the whole consular army. But the difficulties of the road were all that Glabrio had to contend with, so completely had his stern demeanour and his repeated victories quelled the spirit of the Aetolians. Naupactus was on the point of surrendering to Glabrio, but it was rescued by the intercession of the proconsul, T. Quintius Flamininus, and the besieged were permitted to send an embassy to Rome. After attending the congress of the Achaean cities at Aegium, and a fruitless attempt to procure a recal of the exiles to Elis and Sparta, Glabrio returned to Phocis, and blockaded Amphissa. While yet engaged in the siege, his successor, L. Cornelius Scipio, arrived from Rome, and Glabrio gave up to him the command. (Plb. 21.1, 2; Liv. 36.35, 37.6; Appian, App. Syr. 21.) A triumph was unanimously granted to Glabrio, but its unusual splendour was somewhat abated by the absence of his conquering army, which remained in Greece. He triumphed in the autumn of B. C. 190. "De Aetoleis et rege Syriae Antiocho." Glabrio was a candidate for the censorship in B. C. 189. But the party of the nobles which, in 192, had excluded him from the consulship, again prevailed. It was rumoured that a part of the rich booty of the Syrian camp, which had not been displayed at his triumph, might be found in his house. The testimony of his legatus, M. Porcius Cato, was unfavourable to him, and Glabrio withdrew from an impeachment of the tribunes of the plebs, under the decent pretext of yielding to a powerful faction. (Liv. 37.57; Plut. Cat. Ma. 12, 13, 14; Flor. 2.8.10; Aur. Vict. Vir. Illustr. 47, 54; Frontin. Strat. 2.4.4; Eutrop. 3.4; Appian, App. Syr. 17-21.)
M'. F. C. N. GLABRIO, son of the preceding, dedicated, as duumvir under a decree of the senate, B. C. 181, the Temple of Piety in the herb-market at Rome. The elder Glabrio had vowed this temple on the day of his engagement with Antiochus at Thermopylae, and his son placed in it an equestrian statue of his father, the first gilt statue erected at Rome (Liv. 40.34; V. Max. 2.5.1). Glabrio was one of the curule aediles in B. C. 165, when he superintended the celebration of the Megalensian games (Terent. Andr. tit. fab.), and supplementary consul in B. C. 154, in the room of L. Postumius Albinus, who died in his consular year. (Obseq. de Prod. 76; Fast. Capit.)
tribune of the plebs. The date of his tribuneship is not ascertained. He brought forward and carried the lex Acilia de Repetundis, which prohibited ampliatio and comperendinatio. (Cic. in Verr. Act. Pr. 17, in Verr. 2.1, 9, Pseudo-Ascon. in Act. I. Verr. p. 149, in Act. II. Verr. p. 165, Orelli.) For the Lex Caecilia mentioned by Valerius Maximus (6.9.10), we should probably read Lex Acilia. (Dict. of Antiq. s. v. Repetundae.)
M. F. M. N. GLABRIO, son of the preceding and of Mucia, a daaghter of P. Mucius Scaevola, consul in B. C. 133. He married a daughter of M. Aemilius Scaurus, consul in B. C. 115 (Cic. in Verr. 1.17), whom Sulla, in B. C. 82, compelled him to divorce. (Plut. Sull. 33, Pomp. 9.) Glabrio was praetor urbanus in B. C. 70, when he presided at the impeachment of Verres. (Cic. in Verr. 1.2.) Cicero was anxious to bring on the trial of Verres during the praetorship of Glabrio (Ib. 18; Pseudo-Ascon. in Verr. argum. p. 125, Orelli), whose conduct in the preliminaries and the presidency of the judicium he commends (in Verr. Act. 2.5.29, 63), and describes him as active in his judicial functions and careful of his reputation (in Verr. 1.10, 14), although, in a later work (Brut. 68), he says that Glabrio's natural indolence marred the good education he had received from his grandfather Scaevola. Glabrio was consul with C. Calpurnius Piso in B. C. 67, and in the following year proconsul of Cilicia (Schol. Gronov. in Cic. pro Leg. Man. pp. 438, 442, Orelli), to which, by the Gabinian law [Gabinius], Bithynia and Pontus were added. (Sall. Hist. v. p. 243, ed. Gerlach; Plut. Pomp. 30.) He succeeded L. Lucullus in the direction of the war against Mithridates (D. C. 35.14; Cic. pro Leg. Man. 2.5), but his military career was not answerable to his civil reputation. Glabrio hurried to the East, thinking that Mithridates was already conquered, and that he should obtain an easy triumph. But when, instead of a vanquished enemy, he found a mutinous army and an arduous campaign awaiting him, he remained inactive within the frontiers of Bithynia. (D. C. 35.17; Cic. pro Leg. Man. l.c.) Glabrio was indeed worse than inefficient. He directly fomented the insubordination in the legions of Lucullus by issuing, soon after his arrival in Asia, a proclamation releasing Lucullus's soldiers from their military obedience to him, and menacing them with punishment if they continued under his command. (App. Mith. 90.) Lucullus resigned part of his army to Glabrio (Cic. pro Leg. Man. 9), who allowed Mithridates to ravage Cappadocia, and to regain the greater portion of the provinces which the Romans had stripped him of. (Dio Cass. l.c.) Glabrio was himself superseded by Cn. Pompey, as soon as the Manilian law had transferred to him the war in the East. In the debate on the doom of Catiline's accomplices in December, B. C. 63, Glabrio declared in favour of capital punishment, before the speech of Cato determined the majority of the senate (Cic. Att. 12.21), and he approved generally of Cicero's consulship (Phil. 2.5). He was a member of the college of pontiffs in B. C. 57. (Har. Resp. 6, ad Q.fr. 2.1.)
son of the preceding and of Aemilia, daughter of M. Aemilius Scaurus, consul in B. C. 115. Glabrio addressed the judices in behalf of his father-in-law, who was impeached for extortion in B. C. 54. [Scaurus.] (Ascon. in Cic. Scaurian. p. 29, Orelli.) Glabrio was born in the house of Cn. Pompey, B. C. 81,who married his mother after her compulsory divorce from the elder Glabrio [No. 5]. Aemilia died in giving birth to him. (Plut. Sull. 33, Pomp. 9.) In the civil wars, B. C. 48, Glabrio was one of Caesar's lieutenants, and commanded the garrison of Oricum in Epeirus (Caes. Civ. 3.15, 16, 39). During the African war Glabrio was stationed in Sicily, and at this time, B. C. 46, Cicero addressed to him nine letters (ad Fam. 13.30-39) in behalf of friends or clients to whom their affairs in Sicily, or the casualties of the civil war, rendered protection important. When Caesar, in B. C. 44, was preparing for the Parthian wars, Glabrio was sent forward into Greece with a detachment of the army, and succeeded P. Sulpicius Rufus in the government of Achaia. He was twice defended on capital charges by Cicero, and acquitted; and during the civil wars, he, in return, was serviceable to his former advocate (Cic. Fam. 7.30, 31). In Cic. Fam. 13.50, some editors read, for Aucto, Acilio, and refer it to this Glabrio. (Orelli, Onom. Tull. p. 7.)
was consul with Trajan in A. D. 91. The auguries which promised Trajan the empire, predicted death to his colleague in the consulship. To gain the favour of Domitian, Glabrio fought as a gladiator in the amphitheatre attached to the emperor's villa at Alba, and slew a lion of unusual size. Glabrio was first banished and afterwards put to death by Domitian. (Suet. Dom. 10; D. C. 67.12, 14; Juv. Sat. 4.94.) [W.B.D]