Lucius Opimius
Query URLs
https://term.museum-digital.de/md-de/persinst/40077
- Name (English)
- Lucius Opimius
- Short name
- Lucius Opimius
- Short Description
- "Lucius Opimius was Roman politician who held the consulship in 121 BC, in which capacity and year he ordered the execution of 3,000 supporters of popular leader Gaius Gracchus without trial, using as pretext the state of emergency declared after Gracchus´s recent and turbulent death.
He is first mentioned for crushing the revolt of the town of Fregellae in 125 BC. He was elected consul in 121 BC with Quintus Fabius Maximus Allobrogicus, and while Fabius was campaigning in Gaul, he took part in perhaps the most decisive event of Roman history to that point.
When Gaius Gracchus and M. Fulvius Flaccus were defeated for re-election by Opimius and Fabius, Gracchus organized a mass protest on the Aventine Hill. Alarmed by this action, the Senate passed the motion senatus consultum ultimum, which Opimius understood as an order to suppress their activities by any means necessary—including force. He gathered an armed force of Senators and their supporters, and confronted Gracchus and his followers, an act which quickly became a pitched battle inside the city of Rome. Gracchus, Flaccus, and many of their followers were slain in this conflict, and after clearing the streets of his opponents, Opimius established a quaestio or tribunal that condemned to death 3000 people accused of being supporters of Gracchus." - (en.wikipedia.org 21.06.2020) - Entity Encoding
- piz
References
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