Gaius Papirius Carbo (consul 120 BC)

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Gaius Papirius Carbo was an Ancient Roman statesman and orator. He was associated with Gaius Gracchus in carrying out the provision of the agrarian law of Tiberius Gracchus. When tribune of the people (131 BC) he carried a law extending voting by ballot to the enactment and repeal of laws; another proposal, that the tribunes should be allowed to become candidates for the same office in the year immediately following, was defeated by the Scipio Aemilianus. Carbo was suspected of having been involved in the sudden death of Scipio (129). He subsequently went over to the optimates, and (when consul in 120 BC) successfully defended Lucius Opimius, the murderer of Gaius Gracchus, when he was impeached for the murder of citizens without a trial, and even went so far as to say that Gracchus had been justly slain. But the optimates did not trust Carbo. He was impeached by Marcus Licinius Crassus on a similar charge, and, feeling that he had nothing to hope for from the optimates and that his condemnation was certain, he committed suicide.

[See Livy, Epit. 59; Appian, Bell. Civ. 1.18: Veil. Pat. ii.4; Val. Max. iii.7.6; A. H. J. Greenridge, History of Rome (1904)].

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• This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.

Preceded by Quintus Fabius Maximus Allobrigicus and Lucius Opimius

Consul of the Roman Republic with Publius Manilius 120 BC

Succeeded by Lucius Aurelius Cotta and Lucius Caecilius Metellus Dalmaticus