Gaius Calvisius Sabinus (consul 39 BC)

He and his consular colleague Lucius Marcius Censorinus had been the only two senators who tried to defend Julius Caesar when his assassins struck on 15 March 44 BC,[1] and their consulship under the triumvirate is taken as a recognition of their loyalty.

[4] Gaius Calvisius Sabinus is the only member of the gens Calvisia listed in Broughton's Magistrates of the Roman Republic as holding office during the Republican era.

[7] The ethnic cognomen "Sabinus" ("Sabine") is found with the nomen Calvisius for the first time in his name, but inscriptions point toward a probable origin in the Latin colony of Spoletium (Spoleto).

[9] The grandson held the office under Tiberius and continued his political career as a Roman governor under Caligula, but maintaining loyalty had become a trickier matter: he and his wife, a Cornelia, were accused of conspiring against the emperor and committed suicide.

[13] The previous year, the senatorial forces had rallied in Africa after their defeat at Pharsalia, and the Battle of Thapsus meant that the outcome of the war had been determined on African soil.

Calvisius had returned to Rome sometime before 15 March 44, when he was present in the senate during Caesar's assassination, but he had left two legates at Utica who may have caused trouble for his successor, Quintus Cornificius.

[14] On 28 November 44 BC, Marcus Antonius called a meeting of the senate to reallocate several provinces, including Africa Vetus, to be assigned for the following year.

[20] As consuls, Calvisius and Censorinus proposed that the senate redress grievances alleged by representatives of Aphrodisias, who had enjoyed the patronage of Julius Caesar but had endured "steep exactions" by Marcus Brutus and Antonius and an invasion by Titus Labienus.

[24] After Pompeius was defeated, Octavian gave Calvisius the promagisterial assignment of policing and restoring order to Italy in 36–35 BC,[25] at which task he was at least temporarily successful.

An inscription in Spain records a Calvisius Sabinus, flamen of Roma and the Divine Augustus, who donated grain to the people of Clunia when the market had driven up prices to unaffordable levels.