Centumalus

• a Roman cognomen, Cic. Off. 3, 16, 66.

the name of a family of the plebeian Fulvia gens.

1. CN. Fulvius CN. F. CN. N. Maximus Centumalus, legate of the dictator M. Valerius Corvus in the Etruscan war, B. C. 301, and consul in 298 with L. Cornelius Scipio, when he gained a brilliant victory over the Samnites near Bovianum, and afterwards took this town and Aufidena. It would also appear that he subsequently obtained some successes in Etruria, as the Capitoline Fasti speak of his triumph in this year as celebrated over the Samnites and Etruscans. In 295 he served as propraetor in the great campaign of Q. Fabius Maximus and P. Decius Mus, and gained a victory over the Etruscans. (Liv. 10.4, 11, 22, 26, 27, 30.)

The Fasti Capitolini mention a dictator of this name in 263, who is either the same as the preceding, or his son.

2. CN. Fulvius CN. F. CN. N. Centumalus, consul B. C. 229 with L. Postumius Albinus, conducted the war with his colleague in Illyria. They met with no effectual resistance; and after the troops of the Illyrian queen, Teuta, had been completely dispersed, and she herself had retired with a very few followers to a strongly fortified town, called Rhizon, Centumalus returned to Rome with the greater part of the navy and land forces, leaving Albinus behind with forty ships. Centumalus triumphed in the following year, the first time that a triumph had been celebrated over the Illyrians. (Plb. 2.11, 12; Flor. 2.5; Eutrop. 3.4; Oros. 4.13; comp. Dio Cass. Frag. 151, ed. Reimar.)

3. CN. Fulvius CN. F. CN. N. Centumalus, son apparently of No. 2, was curule aedile in B. C. 214, and was elected to the praetorship while he held the former office. As praetor in the following year, B. C. 213, Suessula was assigned him as his province with the command of two legions. He was consul in 211 with P. Sulpicius Galba, and his command was prolonged in the next year, in which he was defeated by Hannibal near the town of Herdonia in Apulia, and he himself with eleven tribunes of the soldiers perished in the battle. (Liv. 24.43, 44, 25.41, 26.1, 28, 27.1; Plb. 9.6; Eutrop. 3.14; Oros. 4.17.)

4. M. Fulvius Centumalus, praetor urbanus B. C. 192, had to take an active part that year in the preparations for the war against Antiochus the Great, and was commanded, among other things, to superintend the building of fifty new quinqueremes. (Liv. 35.10, 20, 23, 24.)

had an action brought against him by P. Calpurnius Lanarius on account of alleged fraud in the sale of some property to the latter. Judgment was pronounced against Centumalus by M. Porcius Cato, the father of Cato Uticensis. (Cic. de Off. 3.16; V. Max. 8.2.1.) [Comp. CATO, No. 6, p. 645a. ]