Servius Sulpicius Rufus
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Servius Sulpicius Rufus (c. 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 would never be able to rival his teacher he gave up rhetoric for law (Cic. Brut. 41). 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 Julius 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). 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 is 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.
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- This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
| Preceded by Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius Scipio and Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus |
Consul of the Roman Republic with Marcus Claudius Marcellus 51 BC |
Succeeded by Lucius Aemilius Paullus and Gaius Claudius Marcellus Minor |
