Gaius Caecilius Metellus
Gaius Metelluswas a youngRoman senatorat the time ofSulla'sproscriptionsin the late 80s BC. Given that hiscognomenis Metellus, hisgensname is likely to have beenCaecilius.Nothing about his identity can be established with certainty.[1]
Plutarchrecords what seems to have been a famous anecdote about Gaius Metellus as the one who prompted theRoman dictatorto post the first proscription lists:
Sulla now devoted himself to butchery, and the city was filled with murders without number or limit, with many people being killed out of private enmity, with whom Sulla had no concerns but permitted it as a favour to his supporters, until one of the young men, Gaius Metellus, ventured in thesenateto ask Sulla what end there would be to these evils.… Sulla replied that he did not know yet whom he would spare, and Metellus answered, 'Then tell us whom you intend to punish'. Sulla said that he would do this.[2]
Plutarch notes, however, that "some say" that it was actually Fufidius, one of Sulla's henchmen, who raised this question.
References
[edit]- ^Robin Waterfield,Plutarch: Roman Lives(Oxford University Press, 1999), p. 481.
- ^Plutarch,Life of Sulla31; Matthew Dillon andLynda Garland,Ancient Rome: From the Early Republic to the Assassination of Julius Caesar(Routledge, 2005), pp. 524–525.
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