Nobilior

• a family name in the gens Fulvia, e. g. M. Fulvius Nobilior, the vanquisher of the Aetolians and the friend of Ennius, Liv. 37, 47; 39, 5; 40, 45.

the name of a family of the plebeian Fulvia gens. This family was originally called Paetinus [Paetinus], and the name of Nobilior seems to have been first assumed by the consul of B. C. 255 [see below, No. 1], to indicate that he was more noble than any others of this name. His descendants dropped the name of Paetinus, and retained only that of Nobilior.

1. Ser. Fulvius Paetinus Nobilior, M. F. M. N., was consul B. C. 255, with M. Aemilius Paullus about the middle of the first Punic war. In the beginning of this year Regulus had been defeated in Africa by the Carthaginians, and the remains of his army were besieged in Clypea. As soon as the senate heard of this disaster they sent both consuls with a fleet of at least three hundred ships, to bring off the survivors. After reducing Cossura the Romans met the Carthaginian fleet near the Hermaean promontory, and gained a most brilliant victory over it. The loss of the Carthaginians was very great, though the numbers are differently stated, and are evidently corrupt in Polybius. After the victory the consuls landed at Clypea, but did not remain long in Africa on account of the complete want of provisions. As it was near the summer solstice, in the month of July, when the Romans set out homewards, the pilots cautioned them to avoid the southern coast of Sicily, as violent gales from the south and south-west make that coast very dangerous at that time of the year. The consuls, however, disregarded their warning; and off Camarina they were surprised by a fearful storm, which destroyed almost the whole fleet, and strewed the coast from Camarina to Pachynus with wrecks and corpses. Both consuls, however, escaped, and celebrated a triumph as proconsuls in the following year (Plb. 1.36, 37; Eutrop. 2.22; Oros. 4.9; Diod. 23.14 ; Zonar. 8.14). Respecting the date of this campaign, see Niebuhr, Hist. of Rome, vol. iii. p. 591, and Arnold, Hist. of Rome, vol. ii. p. 593. n. 67.

2. M. Fulvius Ser., M. F. N. Nobilior, grandson of the preceding, was curule aedile B. C. 195, and praetor B. C. 193, when he obtained Further Spain as his province, with the title of proconsul. He remained in this country two years, and fought with great success against the nations that still resisted the Roman supremacy. He gained a victory over the united forces of the Vaccaei, Tectones, and Celtiberi, near the town of Toletum (Toledo), and took their king, Hilermus, prisoner. He then obtained possession of the town of Toletum, which is the first time that this place is mentioned in history. On his return to Rome in B. C. 191 he was granted the honour of an ovation. (Liv. 33.42, 34.54, 55, 35.7, 22, 36.21, 39.) In B. C. 189 he was consul with M. Fulvius Nobilior, and received the conduct of the war against the Aetolians. He captured the strong town of Ambracia, and then compelled the Aetolians to sue for peace, which was granted them on favourable terms. Shortly afterwards he obliged the island of Cephallenia, which had been excluded from the terms of the peace, to submit to the dominion of Rome. He remained in his province for the next year as proconsul; and on his return to Rome, in B. C. 187, celebrated a most splendid triumph. In the following year he exhibited for ten successive days the games which he had vowed in the Aetolian war, and which were the most magnificent that had yet been seen at Rome. There were venutiones of lions and panthers; and contests of athietae were now for the first time exhibited in the city. The conquest of Aetolia by this consul is also commemorated in the inscription of a statue discovered at Tusculum, from which place the Fulvii originally came. [Fulvia Gens.] (Plb. 22.8_15; Liv. 37.47, 48, 50, 38.3_11, 28, 30, 35, 39.4, 5, 22; Aurel. Vict. de Vir. Ill. 52; Orelli, Inscr. No. 562.) In B. C. 179 he was censor with M. Aemilius Lepidus, the pontifex maximus. The two censors had previously been at feud, but were reconciled to one another upon their election, and discharged the duties of their office with unanimity and concord. They executed many public works, which are mentioned by Livy. (Liv. 40.45, 46, 51, 41.2; V. Max. 4.2.1; Cic. de Prov. Cons. 9.)

Fulvius Nobilior had a taste for literature and art; he was a patron of the poet Ennius, who accompanied him in his Aetolian campaign; and he belonged to that party among the Roman nobles who were introducing into the city a taste for Greek literature and refinement. He was, therefore, an object of the attacks of Cato the Censor, who actually reproached him with having taken Ennius with him into Aetolia, and insinuated that he was corrupting the old Roman discipline by bestowing military crowns upon the soldiers for trivial reasons. Cato also made merry with his name, calling him mobilior instead of nobilior. (Cic. Tsc. 1.2, Brut. 20, pro Arch. 11, de Orat. 3.63.) Fulvius, in his censorship, erected a temple to Hercules and the Muses in the Circus Flaminius, as a proof that the state ought to cultivate the liberal arts, and adorned it with the paintings and statues which he had brought from Greece upon his conquest of Aetolia. He also set up Fasti in this temple, which are referred to by Macrobius. (Cic. pro Arch. Ic.; Plin. Nat. 35.10. s. 36.4; Enumenius, Orat. pro Schlolis Instaurand. 7.3 ; Macrob. Saturn. 1.12.) He left behind him two sons, both of whom obtained the consulship. [Nos. 3 and 4.] His brother, by his mother's side, was C. Valerius Laevinus, who accompanied him in his Aetolian campaign (Plb. 22.12), and who was consul in B. C. 176.

3. M. Fulvius Nobilior, M. F. M. N., son of No. 2, was tribune of the plebs B. C. 171 (Liv. 42.32), curtle aedile B. C. 166, the year in which the Andria of Terence was performed (Tit. Andsr. Terent.), and consul B. C. 159, with Cn. Cornelius Dolabella. Of the events of his consulship we have no records; but as the triumphal fasti assign him a triumph in the following year over the Eleates, a Ligurian people, he must have carried on war in Liguria.

4. Q. Fulvius Nobilior, M. F. M. N., son of No. 2, was consul B. C. 153 with T. Annius Luscus. Livy mentions (39.44) a Q. Fulvius Nobilior who was appointed in B. C. 84 one of the triumviri for founding the colonies of Potentia and Pisaurum; and as Cicero says (Brut. 20) that Q. Nobilior, the son of the conqueror of the Aetolians, was a triumvir coloniae deducendae, though he does not mention the name of the colony, it would seen that the Q. Nobilior mentioned by Livy is the same as the one referred to by Cicero. But there are two objections to this natural conclusion: in the first place, it is exceedingly unlikely, and quite contrary to Roman practice, that such important duties as were involved in the foundation of a colony should have been entrusted to a person so young as Q. Nobilior must have been at that time, since he did not obtain the consulship for thirtyone years afterwards; and in the second place, the Q. Fulvius M. f. who, says Livy (40.42), was elected triumvir epulo in B. C. 180, while still a boy (praetexltatus), can hardly mean any one else than the son of the great M. Fulvius whose name occurs so often in that part of the historian's writings. A consideration of dates will make it almost certain that this Q. Fulvius M. f. must be the same as the consul of B. C. 153; for supposing him to have been sixteen when he was enrolled in the college of the epulones, he would have been forty-three when he was elected consul, the age at which a citizen could first obtain this honour. We therefore conclude that the Q. Nobilior who was triumvir in B. C. 184 must be a different person from the consul of 153.

The consuls of the year B. C. 153 entered upon their office on the kalends of January, whereas up to this time the ides of March had been the day on which they took possession of their dignity. The formidable revolt of the Celtiberians is given as the reason of this alteration; but whatever may have been the cause, the kalends of January continued from this time forth to be the first day of the consular year. (Cassiodorus and Marianus, Chron.; Liv. Epit. 47, refers to this change, but the words are not intelligible as they stand. See the notes in Drakenborch's edition.) Since the conquest of the Celtiberians, in B. C. 179, by Gracchus, the father of the celebrated tribunes, this warlike nation had given tne Romans no trouble, which, however, was more owing to the wise regulations of Gracchus, after his victories, than to the victories themselves. But in consequence of the Romans suspecting the Celtiberian town of Segida or Segeda, they embarked in a war against the whole nation, which was not brought to a conclusion till B. C. 134, by the capture of Numantia by Scipio. Fulvius was sent into Spain in his consulship with an army of nearly 30,000 men, but was very unsuccessful. he was first defeated by the enemy under the command of a native of Segida, called Carus, with aloss of 6000 men, on the day of the Vulcanalia, or the 23d of August; and the misfortune was looked upon as so severe, that no Roman general would afterwards fight on that day unless compelled. Fulvius retrieved, however, to some extent, the disaster, by an attack of the Roman cavalry, who checked the conquerors in their pursuit, and slew Carus and a considerable number of his troops. Shortly afterwards the consul received from Masinissa a reinforcement of Numidian cavalry and some elephants; and the latter caused such terror in the enemy, that they fled before the Romans, and shut themselves up in the town of Numantia. But under the walls of this place Fulvius experienced a new disaster: a restive elephant, whose example was imitated by his companions, threw the Roman army into confusion; and the Celtiberians, availing themselves of this circumstance, sallied from the town, slew 4000 Romans, and captured their elephants. After meeting with one or two other repulses, Fulvius closed his inglorious campaign, and retired to winter-quarters, where many of the troops perished of hunger and cold. He was succeeded in the command by Claudius Marcellus, the consul of the next year. (Appian, App. Hisp. 45-47; Plb. 35.4.)

Fulvius was censor in B. C. 136. (Fasti Capit.) Cicero tells us that he inherited his father's love for literature, and that he presented the poet Ennius with the Roman franchise when he was a triumvir for founding a colony (Cic. Brut. 20).

5. M. Fulvius Nobilior, tribune of the soldiers, B. C. 180, and described as a brother of Q. Fulvius, was probably brother of the Quintus who was triumvir coloniae deducendae in B. C. 184. See the beginning of No. 4. (Liv. 40.41.)

6. M. Fulvius Nobilior is mentioned by Sallust (Sal. Cat. 17) as one of Catiline's conspirators. He is perhaps the same as the M. Fulvius Nobilior who was condemned in B. C. 54, but for what crime we do not know. (Cic. Att. 4.16.12.)

The name of a distinguished family of the Fulvia gens. The most distinguished member of the family was M. Fulvius Nobilior, consul B.C. 189, when he conquered the Aetolians, and took the town of Ambracia. He had a taste for literature and art, and was a patron of the poet Ennius, who accompanied him in his Aetolian campaign (Cic. Tusc. i. 2).