In our current read, First Man in Rome, there is the sad but hugely entertaining story of the Gold of Tolosa. When I first read the book many years ago and didn't realize the tremendous research that Colleen McCullough had done, I questioned the historicity of the event and had to do some research of my own.
Basically, the story is that Quintus Servilius Caepio, proconsul in 105 BCE, found near Tolosa in Southern Gaul a huge hord of gold and silver, supposed to have been seized by the Gauls in Delphi in 279 BCE (but see Strabo below) and to have been under a curse. Caepio reported the discovery of the treasure to the Senate, but the gold mysteriously disappeared on its way to Rome, and soon after, Caepio, in an arrogant behaviour, contributed to the disastrous Roman defeat in the Battle of Arausio. He was eventually prosecuted for the theft of the gold which was never recovered, and he spent the rest of his life in exile in Smyrna, where he presumably enjoyed the spoils of his ill gotten gains. The alleged curse certainly continued to visit his son Quintus Servilius Caepio, brother-in-law of the tribune Marcus Livius Drusus. He barely escaped an accusation of maiestas while quaestor, and a quarrelsome man, got in disputes with Drusus and with the princeps senatus Marcus Aemilius Scaurus. He perished in the Social Wars, after the Marsic general Quintus Poppaedius Silo had drawn him into an ambush.
Cicero refers to the events in On the Nature of Gods, Book III: Consider other judicial inquiries, the one in reference to the gold of Tolosa . . .
Strabo's Geography, Book IV Chapter 1 (at LacusCurtius), talks about the treasure:
. . . And it is further said that the Tectosages shared in the expedition to Delphi; and even the treasures that were found among them in the city of Tolosa by Caepio, a general of the Romans, were, it is said, a part of the valuables that were taken from Delphi, although the people, in trying to consecrate them and propitiate the god, added thereto out of their personal properties, and it was on account of having laid hands on them that Caepio ended his life in misfortunes — for he was cast out by his native land as a temple-robber, and he left behind as his heirs female children only, who, as it turned out, became prostitutes, as Timagenes has said, and therefore perished in disgrace. However, the account of Poseidonius is more plausible: for he says that the treasure that was found in Tolosa amounted to about fifteen thousand talents (part of it in sacred lakes), unwrought, that is, merely gold and silver bullion; whereas the temple at Delphi was in those times already empty of such treasure, because it had been robbed at the time of the sacred war by the Phocians; but even if something was left, it was divided by many among themselves; neither is it reasonable to suppose that they reached their homeland in safety, since they fared wretchedly after their retreat from Delphi and, because of their dissensions, were scattered, some in one direction, others in another. But, as has been said both by Poseidonius and several others, since the country was rich in gold, and also belonged to people who were god-fearing and not extravagant in their ways of living, it came to have treasures in many places in Celtica; but it was the lakes, most of all, that afforded the treasures their inviolability, into which the people let down heavy masses of silver or even of gold. At all events, the Romans, after theymastered the regions, sold the lakes for the public treasury, and many of the buyers found in them hammered mill-stones of silver. And, in Tolosa, the temple too was hallowed, since it was very much revered by the inhabitants of the surrounding country, and on this account the treasures there were excessive, for numerous people had dedicated them and no one dared to lay hands on them.
The Greek geographer Strabo in a 16th century engraving.
Posidonius (Poseidonius) at Wikipedia
(handle both withe care!)
