Everything about Servius Sulpicius Rufus totally explained
Servius Sulpicius Rufus (ca.
106 BC-
43 BC), surnamed
Lemonia from the tribe to which he belonged, Roman orator and
jurist.
He studied
rhetoric with
Cicero, and accompanied him to
Rhodes in
78 BC. Finding that he'd never be able to rival his teacher he gave up rhetoric for
law (Cic. Brut. 41). Cicero on the other hand considered Ser.Sulpicius Rufus as his superior in matters pertaining to the law. In
63 BC he was a candidate for the consulship, but was defeated by
Lucius Licinius Murena, whom he subsequently accused of bribery. In
52 BC he successfully stood election to be consul in
51 BC. In the
Civil War, after considerable hesitation, he threw in his lot with
Caesar, who made him proconsul of
Achaea in
46 BC. He died in
43 BC while on a mission from the senate to
Marcus Antonius at
Mutina. He was accorded a public funeral, and a statue was erected to his memory in front of the
Rostra.
Two excellent specimens of Sulpicius's style are preserved in Cicero (
Ad. Fam. iv. 5 and 12). One of these letters is a letter of condolence to Cicero after the death of his daughter, Tullia. It is an exquisite letter that posterity has much admired, full of subtle, melancholy reflection on the transiency of all things.
Byron has quoted this letter in his
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage.
Quintilian (
Instit. x. 1, 1,6) speaks of three orations by Sulpicius as still in existence; one of these was the speech against Murena, another
Pro or
Contra Aufidium, of whom nothing is known. He is also said to have been a writer of erotic poems.
It is as a jurist, however, that Sulpicius was chiefly distinguished. He left behind him a large number of treatises, and he's often quoted in the Digest, although direct extracts are not found (for titles see
Teuffel-Schwabe,
Hist. of Roman Lit. 174, 4). His chief characteristics were lucidity, an intimate acquaintance with the principles of civil and natural law, and an unrivalled power of expression.
See R Schneider,
De Servio Sulpicio Rufo (Leipzig, 1834); O Karlowa,
Römische Rechtsgeschichte, vol. i. (Leipzig, 1885); the chief ancient authority is Cicero.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Servius Sulpicius Rufus'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://servius_sulpicius_rufus.totallyexplained.com">Servius Sulpicius Rufus Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
