Gaius Servilius Structus Ahala (consul 427 BC)

Gaius Servilius Structus Ahala (Axilla) was a consul of the Roman Republic in 427 BC and possibly consular tribune in 419, 418 and 417 BC.[1]

Servilius belonged to the patrician Servilia gens. He might have been a son of Gaius Servilius Structus Ahala, magister equitum in 439 BC, but if Servilius is to be identified as the same person as the consular tribune of 419 BC, he is instead a grandson of the magister equitum and a son of an otherwise unattested Quintus Servilius Structus Ahala. He had no known children but the magister equitum of 389 BC, Gaius Servilius Ahala, whose filiation is unknown, could possibly be a son.[2]

Career

In 427 BC Servilius held the consulship together with Lucius Papirius Mugillanus. Nothing is known of the events during their consulship.[3][4][5][6]

Servilius would hold the imperium for three years, being elected as consular tribune for three consecutive terms, 419 to 417 BC. Servilius served together with Agrippa Menenius Lanatus, Publius Lucretius Tricipitinus and Spurius Nautius Rutilus in 419 BC. Little is recorded during the year.[3][7][8][9]

Servilius second term as consular tribune was together with Marcus Papirius Mugillanus (son of his former consular colleague of 427 BC) and Lucius Sergius Fidenas. Sergius was defeated in battle by the Aequi and Labicani which lead to the appointment of a dictator. The dictator, a relative of Servilius named Quintus Servilius Priscus Fidenas, appointed Servilius as his magister equitum. They fought and defeated the Aequi and captured Labici. The year also saw the election of two censors, of which one was Servilius former consular colleague, Lucius Papirius Mugillanus.[3][10][11][12][13]

The third and final term, in 417 BC, Servilius served together with two of his former colleagues from 419 BC, Lucretius and Menenius, and a fourth, Spurius Veturius Crassus Cicurinus (or Spurius Rutilius Crassus). Little is known of the events during the year.[3][14][15][16]

Conflicting Traditions

This period in the history of the Roman republic suffers from severe lack of sources and fragmentation of the few existing sources. The few sources that survive are generally contradictionary to each other in regards to the identification of the consuls and consular tribunes of the period.

Servilius, the consul in 427 BC, is given the cognomen Ahala by Livy, Structus by both Diodorus Siculus and the Chronograph of 354. Servilius the consular tribune of 419, 418 and 417 BC is given the cognomen Axilla by the Fasti Capitolini. Livy provides three different narratives for the consular tribune, he completely omits Servilius in 419, gives him the cognomen Priscus in 418 and the cognomen Structus in 417, identifying the consular tribune of 418 and 417 as two different individuals, and both separate from the consul of 427 BC. The Chronograph, Fasti and Diodorus all agree that the consular tribune of 419 to 417 BC should be identified as one individual, having held the title three terms in a row. Livy, confusingly, also names the tribune of 417 BC Lucius instead of Gaius. The classicist Broughton, following the arguments of two other scholars, Münzer and Mommsen, lists the consuls of 427 BC and the consular tribune of 419 to 417 BC as the same individual, Gaius Servilius Structus Ahala (Axilla).[3][10][17][18][19][20][21]

Servilius' colleagues are similarly hard to correctly identify. Both Lucius Papirius Mugillanus and Agrippa Menenius Lanatus could either be elder consuls, having held the consulship in 444 and 439 BC respectively, or younger consuls who held the consulship for the first time. In regard to the consular college of 417 BC the fourth individual differs between sources. Livy names him as Spurius Rutilius Crassus while Diodorus has him named Spurius Veturius Crassus Cicurinus. Livy has most likely confused the name with that of Spurius Nautius Rutilus, colleague of Servilius in 419 BC and one of the consular tribunes the following year in 416 BC, this in combination with the fact that the Rutilii were plebeian (no previous consular tribune had belonged to a plebeian gens) and that no member of the Rutilii would appear within the consular lists for another 250 years, strongly favors Spurius Veturius Crassus Cicurinus as provided by Diodorus.[22][23][21]

See also

• Servilia gens – Ancient Roman family
• Ahala

References

1. Broughton, Magistrates of the Roman Republic, 1951, vol i, pp.66, 71-73
2. Broughton, vol i
3. Chronograph of 354
4. Livy, Ab Urbe Condita, iv. 30.12
5. Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca historica, xii, 78.1
6. Broughton, vol i, pp.66
7. Livy, iv. 44.13
8. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities, xii. 6.6
9. Broughton, vol i, pp.71
10. Fasti Capitolini
11. Livy. iv. 45.4, 46.10-47.7
12. Diodorus, xiii, 2,1
13. Broughton, vol i, pp.72
14. Livy. iv. 47.7
15. Diodorus, xiii. 7.1
16. Broughton, vol i. pp.73
17. Livy, iv. 30.12, 44.13, 45.4, 47.7
18. Diodorus. xii. 78.1, xiii. 2.1, 7.1
19. F. Münzer. in A. Pauly, G. Wissowa, and W. Kroll (eds.), Real-Encyclopädie d. klassischen Altertumswissenschaft, 1894-, No. 37
20. T. Mommsen, Römische Forschungen, 1864-1879, vol ii, 209f.
21. Broughton, vol i, pp.66, 71-73
22. Livy, iv. 47.7
23. Diodorus, xiii, 7.1