Marcus Aemilius Scaurus (consul 115 BC)

Early Career

Scaurus was born into a prestigious but impoverished patrician family: Cicero, for instance, comments that Scaurus was so poor as to be effectively a novus homo. In order to maintain the family lifestyle, his father became a coal-dealer. However, Scaurus himself declined any commercial activities (forbidden for senators) and embarked on a political life.

Scaurus’ cursus honorum started when he became a military tribune in the Hispania provinces. Then he became curule aedile in charge of the public games, and afterwards praetor in 120 BC.

Consulship

Scaurus was elected consul in 115 BC with Marcus Caecilius Metellus as his junior colleague.

In the same year he was nominated princeps senatus and confirmed by the Senate, an office which he held until his death. This was the foremost honour during this period: however, Scaurus' appointment was considered somewhat of a coup at the time, given that he was nowhere near being the most senior patrician alive.

Scaurus was not without controversy during these years. Sallust, for instance, writes in his Bellum Jugurthinum that Scaurus was accused by some of being the most corrupt of all nobles during the infamous period of the Jugurthine War (112–106 BC).

'Father of the Senate'

As leader of the Roman senate, Scaurus was often sent abroad to settle disputes amongst foreign kings. In 109 BC, he was elected censor in partnership with Marcus Livius Drusus, who died in the next year putting an end to the censorship. As censor, he ordered the construction of the Via Aemilia Scaura and restored several bridges.

In 104 BC, he became responsible for Rome's grain supply, the cura annonae. This was a very important office, given only to the most trustworthy persons, because the happiness of the population (and absence of mutinies) depended on it. However, Scaurus' appointment was at the expense of Lucius Appuleius Saturninus, at the time a quaestor, who had previously been in charge of the supply. Cicero judges that the loss of the cura annonae was the spark that drove Saturninus towards popularis demagoguery.

Scaurus was throughout his political career the leader of the conservative elements of the senate. He helped, for instance, lead the opposition against the tribune Gaius Norbanus in 103 BC. Norbanus was prosecuting Quintus Servilius Caepio, the consul of 106 BC, after the latter's catastrophic loss at the Battle of Arausio (and, more specifically, for stealing the Gold of Tolosa). Alongside the tribune Titus Didius, Scaurus attempted to rally the conservative elements of the Senate against Norbanus, but was driven back through violence: Scaurus was even struck in the head by a stone (Norbanus was eventually tried in c.95 BC for this act of violence).

In 100 BC, during the height of the violence brought about by Saturninus and Gaius Servilius Glaucia, it was Scaurus who proposed the so-called 'final decree' (senatus consultum ultimum) in the Senate. This decree ordered the consul Gaius Marius to put down Saturninus and Glaucia, and they were soon lynched along with their followers in the Curia Hostilia.

Late 90s BC

In 92 BC, Scaurus was brought to trial by Q. Servilius Caepio the Younger for provincial extortion and, it seems, for taking bribes from Mithridates VI of Pontus. However, Scaurus managed to issue a counter-prosecution against Caepio, thereby bringing the process to a legal standstill.

The experience of this affair apparently motivated Scaurus to support the legislative reforms of Marcus Livius Drusus the Younger, tribune in 91 BC and the son of Scaurus' former colleague as censor. Alongside Lucius Licinius Crassus, Scaurus was Drusus' main conservative champion and helped pass his extensive legislative programme. However, after the sudden death of Crassus in September 91 BC, Drusus rapidly lost his support in the Senate, and the consul Lucius Marcius Philippus succeeded in abrogating Drusus' laws on religious technicalities.

After Drusus' assassination and the subsequent outbreak of the Social War (91-88 BC), Scaurus was prosecuted in 90 BC under the special court of the tribune Quintus Varius Severus, which had been set up to prosecute anyone suspected of rousing the Italians to revolt. However, Scaurus was able to achieve his own acquittal on the basis of his auctoritas, asking the audience whether they would believe the word of a provincial Spaniard (Varius was from Spain) or of Scaurus himself, the princeps senatus.

The exact date of Scaurus' death is unknown. However, he must have been dead by late 89 BC, when his wife Caecilia Metella Dalmatica married Sulla.

Legacy

Scaurus' prestige outlived his death, and he was remembered by subsequent generations of Romans as a figure of great importance. It was said, for instance, that:

'Almost the whole world was ruled by his nod' (cuius nutu prope terrarum orbis regebatur).

However, Scaurus was also remembered negatively by some, most notably the historian Sallust, as an unscrupulous politician. For instance, when writing of the extensive bribery of Jugurtha in his attempts to persuade the Senate not to intervene on his brother's behalf, Sallust comments the following on Scaurus' character:

A few, on the other hand, to whom right and justice were more precious than riches, recommended that aid be given to Adherbal and that the death of Hiempsal be severely punished. Conspicuous among these was Aemilius Scaurus, a noble full of energy, a partisan, greedy for power, fame, and riches, but clever in concealing his faults. As soon as this man saw the king's bribery, so notorious and so brazen, fearing the usual result in such cases, namely, that such gross corruption would arouse popular resentment, he curbed his habitual cupidity.

Marriage and children

His second wife was Caecilia Metella Dalmatica who was later the third wife of Lucius Cornelius Sulla. From this marriage, he had two children: