New Senators

Three senators will join the Senate tomorrow.

LUCIUS AEMILIUS PAULLUS (Mark Crowley) is the elder brother of Marcus Aemilius Lepidus. In 63, he brought formal charges of violence (vis) against Catiline; and he was one of the sponsors of the bill to recall Cicero from exile. Cicero called Paullus “a man born to preserve the Republic.” As curule aedile in 56, he began to restore the Basilica Aemilia in the Roman Forum, a building begun by the family in the second century BCE. He was praetor in 53 and consul in 50. He was a passive supporter of Julius Caesar in 50; perhaps he was won over by a huge donation from Caesar for the completion of the Basilica project, or perhaps he was helping his brother; in any event, he took no part in the Civil War.

GAIUS CLAUDIUS MARCELLUS (Kainien Morel) was consul in 50 BCE. Frustrated in his efforts to recall Julius Caesar from his province, Claudius called on Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus to take command of the two legions stationed at Capua and to raise more troops (2 December 50). After the outbreak of the civil war between Caesar and Pompey, Claudius remained in Italy and obtained Caesar’s pardon. In 46 he made a dramatic appeal to Julius Caesar for the pardon and return to Italy of his first cousin, Marcus Claudius Marcellus (consul 51 BCE), who had also opposed Caesar and had been in exile on the island of Mytilene in the eastern Mediterranean since 48. In response to Gaius' appeal and Caesar’s pardon of his cousin, Cicero delivered his speech of gratitude to Caesar, the pro Marcello. (Marcus Claudius Marcellus was murdered in 45, as he passed through Greece on his way back to Italy.)

Since 54 Gaius Claudius has been married to Octavia, daughter of Gaius Octavius and Atia (herself the daughter of Julia, Caesar’s sister) and sister of the young Gaius Octavius, adopted in his will by Julius Caesar.

LUCIUS CORNELIUS CINNA (Emily Allen) is from a patrician family and the son of Lucius Cornelius Cinna (consul 87, 86, 85, 84 BCE), who was the most famous supporter of Marius and opponent of Sulla. Cinna supported Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, the consul of 78, when he tried to dismantle Sulla’s “constitution,” and he joined Quintus Sertorius, a supporter of Marius and Cinna's father, in Spain, where Sertorius held out against the forces of Sulla through 75. Cinna was allowed to return to Italy, along with other supporters of Lepidus, in 70 BCE, supported by Julius Caesar (who was married to Cinna's sister at the time); but Sulla’s laws still prohibited Cinna from a public career until after Caesar captured Rome in the civil war and passed a law allowing the sons of those proscribed by Sulla to reenter public life. Cinna was elected praetor in 44. Cinna was not one of the conspirators against Caesar, but after Caesar's assassination Cinna joined the tyrannicides and took off the insignia of his office as praetor “because they were the gift of a tyrant.” Cinna resumed his insignia for the first Senate meeting after the assassination, but was attacked on his way to the Senate and was rescued by the magister equitum Marcus Aemilius Lepidus. The Roman mob attacked a tribune of the people named Cinna (Gaius Helvius Cinna) by mistake for Cornelius Cinna. After Caesar’s death, Cornelius Cinna sponsored the recall of the tribunes Gaius Caesetius Flavus and Gaius Epidius Marullus, who had been deprived of their tribunician powers after they removed a diadem from Caesar’s statue and prosecuted persons who saluted Caesar as king.