Lucius Appuleius Saturninus (d. 100 BCE) was a Roman politician, orator, and demagogue. He was quaestor in 104 and twice tribune of the plebs, 103 and 100. He was violently opposed to the optimates in the senate, possibly blaming them for his removal from his post as quaestor in charge of grain importation in Ostia, which seems to have been unjustified. He allied himself with Caius Marius, whom he assisted with the passage of an agrarian law, and the establishment of new colonies in Sicily, Achaia, and Macedonia.
Saturninus was an enemy of Quintus Caecilius Metellus Numidicus, who had tried as censor in 102 to remove Saturninus from the Senate. When Saturninus forced through the agrarian law, Metellus refused a required oath and was driven into exile.
Plutarch in Caius Marius treats the story thus:
A few days after, on Saturninus citing the senators to make their appearance, and take the oath before the people, Marius stepped forth, amidst a profound silence, every one being intent to hear him, and bidding farewell to those fine speeches he had before made in the senate, said, that his back was not so broad that he should think himself bound, once for all, by any opinion once given on so important a matter; he would willingly swear and submit to the law, if so be it were one, a proviso which he added as a mere cover for his effrontery. The people, in great joy at his taking the oath, loudly clapped and applauded him, while the nobility stood by ashamed and vexed at his inconstancy; but they submitted out of fear of the people, and all in order took the oath, till it came to Metellus's turn. But he, though his friends begged and entreated him to take it, and not to plunge himself irrecoverably into the penalties which Saturninus had provided for those that should refuse it, would not flinch from his resolution, nor swear; but, according to his fixed custom, being ready to suffer anything rather than do a base, unworthy action, he left the forum, telling those that were with him, that to do a wrong thing is base, and to do well where there is no danger, common; the good man's characteristic is to do so, where there is danger.
Hereupon Saturninus put it to the vote, that the consuls should place Metellus under their interdict, and forbid him fire, water, and lodging. There were enough, too, of the basest of people ready to kill him. Nevertheless, when many of the better sort were extremely concerned, and gathered about Metellus, he would not suffer them to raise a sedition upon his account, but with this calm reflection left the city, “Either when the posture of affairs is mended and the people repent, I shall be recalled, or if things remain in their present condition, it will be best to be absent.” But what great favor and honor Metellus received in his banishment, and in what manner he spent his time at Rhodes, in philosophy, will be more fitly our subject, when we write his life.
Thereafter things went downhill and Saturninus came to a miserable end:
Marius, in return for this piece of service, was forced to connive at Saturninus, now proceeding to the very height of insolence and violence, and was, without knowing it, the instrument of mischief beyond endurance, the only course of which was through outrages and massacres to tyranny and the subversion of the government. Standing in some awe of the nobility, and, at the same time, eager to court the commonalty, he was guilty of a most mean and dishonest action. When some of the great men came to him at night to stir him up against Saturninus, at the other door, unknown to them, he let him in; then making the same presence of some disorder of body to both, he ran from one party to the other, and staying at one time with them and another with him, he instigated and exasperated them one against another. At length when the senate and equestrian order concerted measures together, and openly manifested their resentment, he did bring his soldiers into the forum, and driving the insurgents into the capitol, and then cutting off the conduits, forced them to surrender by want of water. They, in this distress, addressing themselves to him, surrendered, as it is termed, on the public faith. He did his utmost to save their lives, but so wholly in vain, that when they came down into the forum, they were all basely murdered. Thus he had made himself equally odious both to the nobility and commons, and when the time was come to create censors, though he was the most obvious man, yet he did not petition for it; but fearing the disgrace of being repulsed, permitted others, his inferiors, to be elected, though he pleased himself by giving out, that he was not willing to disoblige too many by undertaking a severe inspection into their lives and conduct.
The “height of insolence and violence” in fact was provoced by Saturninus' alliance with Gaius Servilius Glaucia, a disputed candidate for consul in 100. They arranged the murder of the other candidate, Caius Memmius and were pronounced public enemies by a senatus consultum, and general mayhem prevailed. They and their supporters were promised safety and shut into the curia hostilia,
the Senate House, prior to an intended trial. Who murdered them (“a
mob”) is not quite clear and cause of much speculation, among others
that it was a group of young aristocrats. In Colleen McCulloughs The First Man in Rome, this posse was instigated by Sulla.
Mommsen, in his History of Rome, deals with Saturninus starting with this page.
1911 Britannica
Wikipedia (handle with care)
Photo of later curia hostilia courtesy Judith Geary, author of Getorix: The Eagle and The Bull: A Celtic Adventure in Ancient Rome.
