The Dictatorship of Minucius

Abstract

The constitutional position of M. Minucius as a result of the plebiscitum of Metilius in 217 B.C. has never been satisfactorily defined; this is due to the vagueness of the ancient authorities. Polybius does indeed make the explicit statement that there were two dictators appointed to carry on the same campaign, a thing unprecedented in Roman history. On the strength of this passage, it has often been assumed that the formal title of ‘dictator’, with all that it implied, was conferred on Minucius by the proposal of Metilius. But the other authorities are not so explicit, and their language seems to contradict Polybius. Livy, for example, refers to the rogatio of Metilius as a proposal ‘de aequando magistri equitum et dictatoris iure’ (XXII, 25, 10), or ‘de aequato imperio’ (26, 7). Nowhere does Livy refer to Minucius as Dictator; in fact, he seems deliberately to avoid doing so. In this respect Plutarch, too, seems to follow Livy. In his Life of Fabius he states that Metilius proposed that Minucius should share the command with Fabius and have equal authority in conducting the campaign; he concludes by saying that the People conferred on Minucius a power equal to that of the Dictator. To judge from the language of both Livy and Plutarch it would appear that whatever position Minucius may have held as a result of the rogatio it was not that of Dictator.