Tiberius Claudius Asellus was a man of Ancient Rome of the equestrian order. He was deprived of his horse, and reduced to the condition of an Aerarii by Scipio Aemilianus in his censorship in 142 BCE.
When Asellus boasted of his military services, and complained that he had been degraded unjustly, Scipio replied with the Latin proverb, "Agas asellum", that is, "Agas asellum, si bovem non agere queas", which it is difficult or impossible to translate so as to preserve the point of the joke;[1] it was a proverbial expression for saying that if a person cannot hold as good a station as he wishes, he must be content with a lower one.
In 140 BCE, he unsuccessfully attempted to prevent the departure of Quintus Servilius Caepio for the Lusitanian War.[2][3]
When Asellus was tribune of the plebs in 139 BCE, he accused Scipio before the people;[4][5] and the writer Aulus Gellius makes a quotation from the fifth oration of Scipio against Asellus, which may have been delivered in this year.[6] Among other charges which Asellus brought against Scipio, was that the lustrum had been inauspicious (because it had been followed by a pestilence); and Gellius has preserved two verses of Gaius Lucilius referring to this charge:[7][8]
Scipiadae magno improbus objiciebat Asellus
Lustrum, illo censore, malum infelixque fuisse.
Scipio replied that it was not surprising that it should have been so, as his colleague, Lucius Mummius Achaicus, who had performed the lustrum, had removed Asellus from the aerarians and restored him to his former rank.[9][10][11]
This Claudius Asellus seems to be the same who was poisoned by his wife, Licinia.[12]
References
edit- ^ Cicero, De Oratore 2.64
- ^ Livy, P. Oxy 54
- ^ Evans, John Karl (2023). "Resistance at Home: The Evasion of Military Service in Italy during the Second Century B.C.". In Doi, Masaoki; Yuge, Toru (eds.). Forms of Control and Subordination in Antiquity. Brill Publishing. p. 124. ISBN 9789004676060.
- ^ Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights 3.4
- ^ von Albrecht, Michael; Schmeling, Gareth L. (1997). A History of Roman Literature: From Livius Andronicus to Boethius : with Special Regard to Its Influence on World Literature. Vol. 1. Brill Publishing. p. 251. ISBN 9004107096.
- ^ Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights 2.20
- ^ Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights 4.17
- ^ Ferriss-Hill, Jennifer L. (2015). "The Komodoumenoi of Old Comedy and Roman Satire". Roman Satire and the Old Comic Tradition. Cambridge University Press. p. 219. ISBN 9781316240786.
- ^ Cicero, De Oratore 2.66
- ^ Valerius Maximus 6.4.2
- ^ Aurelius Victor, De Viris Illustribus Romae 58, where the opposition of Mummius to Scipio is alluded to.
- ^ Valerius Maximus 6.3.8
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Smith, William (1870). "Ti. Claudius Asellus". In Smith, William (ed.). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. Vol. 1. p. 385.