[1] Calavius was descended from the noble Campanian family of the Calavii, which first appeared in history a century earlier, during the Great Samnite War.
Making Capua his winter quarters, Hannibal invited Calavius and his son, Perolla, to a banquet at the house of another noble family, the Ninii Celeres.
Horrified, Calavius pleaded with his son to reconsider, arguing that such a deed, even if accomplished, would be a betrayal both of the young man's father and his city; and furthermore, that the plan was unlikely to succeed, but Perolla would certainly be cut down in the attempt.
[8] Despite his noble birth, and successful prevention of first a massacre and then the rash action of his son, the Roman historians describe Calavius as a man of unlimited ambition and yearning for power, who obtained his position through trickery.
Some of this may have been interpolation from his skillful manipulation of the political crisis in 217, or it may reflect the Roman viewpoint of a powerful magistrate, whose actions placed the needs of his own city ahead of Rome.