Marcus Valerius Laevinus

A member of the gens Valeria, an old patrician family believed to have migrated to Rome under the Sabine king T. Tatius,[1] Laevinus played an integral role in the containment of the Macedonian threat.

[7] Stationed in Brundisium, Laevinus was appointed to act as a deterrent to any potential advance from the Macedonian king, Philip V, who had allied his forces with the Carthaginian general Hannibal Barca who had invaded Italy.

Rome's preoccupation with war against Carthage provided an opportunity for Philip V of Macedon to extend his power westward.

On their journey back to Macedon, the emissaries were captured by P. Valerius Flaccus, commander of the Roman fleet patrolling the southern Apulian coast.

If they were hostile, Laevinus was to cross the Adriatic and keep Philip confined to Macedon, so as to prevent him from providing any assistance to Hannibal in Italy.

[15] Preoccupied by the ongoing conflict with Hannibal and the Carthaginians, Rome was unable to send a force large enough to effectively deal with the Macedonian threat.

[16] In 212 BC, Laevinus was sent to begin negotiations with both the Aetolian League and Attalus I of Pergamum, which successfully concluded in the autumn of 211.

Following the agreement, Laevinus wasted no time; he captured Zakynthos, and the Arcananian cities of Oeniadae and Nasos before wintering on Corcyra.

Shortly after, he received voluntary surrenders from forty Sicilian towns, and captured another twenty-six by betrayal or force, thus ending the war in Sicily.

[21] The following spring, whilst besieging Anticyra in the Gulf of Corinth, Laevinus received news that he had been elected consul in absentia, with M. Claudius Marcellus (IV) as his colleague.

Although he was found not guilty, the Senate swapped the commands of the consuls, sending Marcellus to fight Hannibal and placing Laevinus in charge of Sicily.

[32] Laevinus had forbidden the praetor from bringing a motion to the people for the appointment of a dictator, but as he was no longer in Italy, the tribunes ignored his order.

In 205, following his recall to Italy the year before, it appears that Laevinus was involved in the Roman embassy tasked with transporting the sacred stone of Cybele from Phrygia back to the capital, in response to a consultation of the Sybilline Books.

T. Robert S. Broughton's Magistrates of the Roman Republic (1951–1960) provides an overview of the political offices which Laevinus held.