Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-7cvxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-24T03:21:07.539Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Mental Breakdown of a Roman Senator: M. Calpurnius Bibulus

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 September 2009

Michael J. G. Gray-Fow
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Some time early in 50 B.C. the two elder sons of M. Calpurnius Bibulus the Roman governor of Syria were killed in Egypt by milites Gabiniani, Roman soldiers left there by A. Gabinius – an earlier governor of Syria. What Bibulus' sons were doingin Egypt is a mystery, partly because we do not know how old they were; all we know about them is that they were outstandingly gifted or outstandingly beautiful, or both. The soldiers had been left in Egypt (basically as mercenaries) by Gabinius in 54 B.C. when hehad been bribed by Ptolemy XII Auletes to restore him to the throne from which he had been driven by his exasperated subjects. Why these particular troops took it into their heads to murder Bibulus' sons is another mystery, which we will touch upon, but our main concern here is the effect which the death of his sons had on Bibulus. Our contention is simply that the incident is part of a rarely documented example from the classical world of a clear mental breakdown in one prominent individual. In Bibulus' case it took the form of paralysing shock, followed by grief, depression, and a frenzy of sleepless activity in which he eventually wore himself to death. To understand how this operated in the way it did in this particular case, we need to understand Bibulus the man and his personal history.

Type
Research Article
Information
Greece & Rome , Volume 37 , Issue 2 , October 1990 , pp. 179 - 190
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1990

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Notes

1. Val. Max. 4.1.15.

2. Caes, . BC 3.16.3Google Scholar; Suet, . lul. 10Google Scholar.

3. The younger Bibulus was about 20 in 45 B.C. when he was a student at Athens, a contemporary there of Horace and Cicero's son. Cic, . Att. 12.32Google Scholar; Plut, . Cat.Min. 25Google Scholar, Brut. 15. Cf. Daly, L. ‘Romans Study Abroad’ AJPh 81 (1950), 40f.Google Scholar; Bonner, S., Education in Ancient Rome (Berkeley, 1977), pp. 90f.Google Scholar

4. Based on the Lex Villia Annalis and Sulla's reforms.

5. Plut, . Cat.Min. 25Google Scholar.

6. Suet, . lul. 10Google Scholar; cf. Sail, . Cat. 49Google Scholar; Dio 37.8.2; Plut, . Caes. 6Google Scholar.

7. Caes, . BC 3.16Google Scholar; Oros, . Adv.Pag. 6.6.7Google Scholar; cf. Dio 37.41.1.

8. Suet, . lul. 20Google Scholar; cf. Fowler, W. Warde, The Religious Experience of the Roman People (London, 1922), pp. 301f.Google Scholar; Cic, . Att. 2.16Google Scholar.

9. Cic, . Att. 2.20, 2.21Google Scholar.

10. Cary, M. & Scullard, H. H., A History of Rome down to the Reign of Constantine (New York, 1983), pp. 265f.Google Scholar

11. Cic, . Fam. 1.1.4Google Scholar.

12. Livy, Epit. 105Google Scholar; Dio 39.55–58; cf. Plut, . Cat.Min. 35Google Scholar.

13. Cic, . Att. 5.17Google Scholar.

14. ibid. 12.32.

15. Cic, . Fam. 15.14Google Scholar. Cf. Hitti, P., History of Syria (New York, 1951), p. 282Google Scholar; Ghirshman, R., Iran (Harmondsworth, 1954), pp. 252f.Google Scholar

20. Cic, . Fam. 2.17Google Scholar.

21. Dio 40.30.If.; Just, . Epit. 42.4Google Scholar.

22. Cic, . Att. 7.2; 7.3Google Scholar.

23. Val, . Max. 4.1.15Google Scholar.

24. Cic, . Att. 9.9Google Scholar.

25. Plutarch claims in Cat.Min. 25 that Porcia bore Bibulus two children, but refers to their having only one son in Brut. 13.

26. Plut, . Cat.Min. 54Google Scholar; Dio 41.44.3; Caes, . BC 3.5Google Scholar.

27. Cf. Plut, . Cat.Min. 60Google Scholar.

28. Hor, . Carm. 1.3.9f.Google Scholar, 1.33.15f., 2.14.14, 3.9.23.

29. Caes, . BC, 3.6f.Google Scholar

30. ibid. 3.8.

31. ibid. 3.14.

32. Libo's daughter married Pompey's younger son; his sister later married Octavian and became the mother of Julia.

33. Caes, . BC 3.16Google Scholar.

34. ibid. 3.15.

35. ibid. 3.18.