Quintus Pleminius

Pleminius was in charge of the Roman garrison at Rhegium, the geographical location of which on the "toe" of the Italian peninsula had made it a de facto part of the province of Sicily.

Hostilities escalated when Hannibal arrived on the scene, but Locrian insiders enabled Pleminius's men to hold out until Scipio could bring troops from Messana, at which time the Carthaginians withdrew.

Scipio then sent a delegation to Rome placing the matter of Locri's political status in the hands of the Roman senate, and returned with his troops to Messana.

"[7] As soon as Scipio left for Sicily, Pleminius had the tribunes seized and tortured them to death, offering a "novel" justification: "No one knew how to name the penalty for a crime except someone who had learnt its savagery by suffering.

They complained of widespread rapes committed against women and boys dragged from their homes, and the sacrilegious looting of the Temple of Proserpina, the chief deity of Locri.

The difficulty and delicacy of Matho's position should not be underestimated; the legal question was whether a high-level magistrate should be held responsible for actions committed by an officer to whom he had delegated imperium on his own authority.

Since Matho's own imperium was inferior to that of Scipio, there was a risk that if charged and found guilty, the proconsul would ignore the praetor and simply exit the province to pursue his African venture.

[13] Scipio, however, dazzled the commission,[14] while Pleminius was left to take the fall for plundering the Temple of Proserpina and murdering the tribunes Publius Matienus and Marcus Sergius.

The complexities of the case may account for the proliferating versions,[20] and the potential legal status of Pleminius is of interest in documenting the use of exile in ancient Rome.

[22] Livy reports that Pleminius, still imprisoned in 194 BC, organized a number of men to cover his escape by setting fire to various points in Rome.