Lucius Calpurnius Piso Frugi (consul 133 BC)
Lucius Calpurnius Piso Frugi (sometimes Censorinus) was a Roman consul in 133 BC, historian and representative of older Roman annalists. He was of plebeian origin.
In 149 BC he held the office of tribune. During his tribunate he proposed the first law for the punishment of extortion in the provinces, Lex Calpurnia de Repetundis[1]. In 139 BC praetor, in 133 BC he was elected consul with Publius Mucius Scaevola when he achieved victory over slaves in Italy, but did not subdue them. Probably in 120 BC he was elected censor, therefore some ancient writers called him Censorinus. He was opponent of Tiberius Gracchus.
He was author of the Annales, seven books about history of the Rome beginning by its establishment up to Piso's times. However, according to Livy, he is considered less reliable author than Fabius Pictor, because Piso tended to moralize, idealize history and succumb to tendentiousness. German historian Barthold Georg Niebuhr asserted that Piso was the first Roman historian to introduce systematic forgeries. Only fragments of his works have been preserved, from which we can deduce the simple style of his writing.