Titus Menenius Lanatus (consul 477 BC)
Titus Menenius Lanatus (died 476 BC) was a Roman patrician of the fifth century BC. He was elected consul in 477 BC. He unsuccessfully fought the Veiians, and was later prosecuted by the tribunes of the plebs for his failure.
Family
Based on his recorded filiation, Titus Menenius Agr.f. C.n. Lanatus, Menenius was the son of Agrippa Menenius Lanatus, who was consul in 503 BC, and the grandson of Gaius Menenius. Based on their filiations, Menenius was the father of Lucius Menenius Agrippa Lanatus, consul 440 BC and Menenius Agrippa Lanatus, the consul of 439 BC and tribunus militum consulari potestate in 419 and 417 BC.
Life
In 477 BC Menenius was elected consul with Gaius Horatius Pulvillus.[1] The Senate entrusted the conduct of the war against the Veii to him, in support of the gens Fabia who were guarding the frontier against the Etruscan city, while his colleague prepared to face the Volscians. But when the Fabians were massacred in the Battle of the Cremera, Menenius not only failed to save them from destruction, he was defeated by the Veii, who exploited their success by occupying the Janiculum. Horatius Pulvillus was recalled in haste to defend the city. While Horatius won a first battle on the Janiculum against the Veientes, it was the consuls of the following year who were able to defeat the enemy and drive them out of Roman territory.[2][3]
After he left office Menenius was prosecuted by the tribunes Quintus Considius and Titus Genucius, ostensibly for his conduct of military operations during his consulate, in particular for allowing the gens Fabia be slaughtered. However, Livy points out that the prosecution may have been motivated more by his opposition to the agrarian law that the plebeians been calling for the death of Spurius Cassius Viscellinus in 486. He was defended by the Senate as strenuously as they defended Coriolanus few years earlier, and by the reputation of his father, who was popular for having reconciled the plebeians and patricians after the first secession of the plebs.[4]
According to Livy, Menenius was able to avoid the death penalty or exile, and was fined 2000 as; yet the sentence proves a death sentence, for unable to bear the humiliation Menenius soon fell sick and died.[4] On the other hand, Dio Cassius reports a different version, likely based on ancient sources that still use the term "lender" to mean a consul: according to him, Menenius was sentenced to death by the court.[5]
See also
References
- ^ Per the Varronian chronology. Dionysius of Halicarnassus dates their consulship to "the seventy-sixth Olympiad (the one at which Scamander of Mitylene won the foot-race), when Phaedo was archon at Athens" or 475 BC. (Roman Antiquities, 9.18.1)
- ^ Livy, Ab Urbe Condita, 2.51.1
- ^ Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities, 9.23-24
- ^ a b Livy, 2.52.3-5
- ^ Dio Cassius, Roman History, 5.21