Gaius Salvius Liberalis

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Gāius Salvius Līberālis, more commonly known as Salvius, was a Roman aristocrat. He is perhaps best known through the Cambridge Latin Course Books II-V.

[edit] Historical

Salvius was born in central Italy at some point in the first century AD, but soon moved to Rome. After a successful career as a lawyer, he was made a senator, probably by the Emperor Vespasian. In AD 78 he was chosen as one of the Arval brotherhood, a group of twelve men who met regularly to perform religious ceremonies and to pray for the Emperor and his family.

Salvius was also put in command of a legion. And in about AD 81, the Emperor Titus sent him to help Agricola, the governor of the Roman province of Britannia. He was to look after the south of the province while Agricola was away fighting in the north.

[edit] Fictional - In the Cambridge Latin course

He married Vitellia Rufilla and the two lived together with their slaves and son Gaius Salvius Vitellianus in a villa near Noviomagus.

This was near a mine, which he put slaves to work on, including the fictional Bregans. They were treated very badly, as they were not house slaves like Clemens in the Cambridge Latin Book I.

For example, a sick slave was simply killed as he was no use to Salvius and expensive to look after. Also Salvius tried to get rid of the rest of the slave as he thought their was a conspiarcy against him.