Lucius Marcius Philippus (consul 91 BC)

His strenuous opposition to the reforms of Marcus Livius Drusus during his consulship of 91 BC was instrumental in the outbreak of the disastrous Bellum Italicum, the Social War.

Philippus had backed the winner in the Civil War, and enjoyed a special eminence in the first decade after as one of the few surviving men of consular rank and as Rome's pre-eminent orator since the death of Marcus Antonius (late 87 BC).

[4] Marcius Philippus was plebeian tribune in 104 BC, during which time he brought forward an agrarian law, the details about which we are not informed, but which is chiefly memorable for the statement he made in recommending the measure, that there were not two thousand men in the state who possessed property.

[6] He seems to have brought forward the agrarian measure chiefly with the view of acquiring popularity, and he quietly dropped it when he found there was no hope of carrying it.

This was a very turbulent year in Rome for Marcus Livius Drusus, a tribune of the plebs, who brought forward laws concerning the distribution of grain, assignation of public land, and the creation of colonies in Italy and Sicily.

This roused the great orator Lucius Licinius Crassus, who asserted in the course of his speech, in which he is said to have surpassed his usual eloquence, that that man could not be his consul who refused to recognise him as senator.

His reputation continued even to the Augustan age, whence we read in Horace:[17] Cicero says that Philippus was decidedly inferior as an orator to his two great contemporaries Crassus and Antonius, but was without question next to them, but far next (sed longo intervallo tamen proxumus.

In speaking he possessed much freedom and wit; he was fertile in invention, and clear in the development of his ideas; and in altercation he was witty and sarcastic.

Neither of the consuls Mamercus Aemilius Lepidus Livianus nor Decimus Junius Brutus wanted to be sent to Spain to fight the rebellious general Quintus Sertorius.

[21] Philippus was a man of luxurious habits, which his wealth enabled him to gratify: his fish-ponds were particularly famous for their magnificence and extent, and are mentioned by the ancients along with those of Lucullus and Hortensius.