Nine Books of Memorable Deeds and Sayings

For in the next year after 773, as permitted by law, no lot fell to Pompeius, but he was lingering in Rome, provided he is the same Sex. Pompeius—which I do not doubt—who, having been requested as an advocate by Cn. Piso, who was suspected of the murder of Germanicus and therefore accused of poisoning and treason, had refused to defend him. However, at that time, C. Iunius Silanus, consul ten years prior (763), seems to have administered the province of Asia; two years later (775), having been accused by the allies of extortion and convicted, he was interdicted from water and fire and, by the merciful sentence of the prince, granted exile to the island of Cythnus, as Tacitus narrates (Annals III, 66–69). Likewise, in the following year, 774, Sex. Pompeius was in Rome, and with him opposing it, M' Lepidus was sent to Asia, having served his consulship a decade prior (764), according to the same Tacitus (Annals III, 32) 1. Then, in the year 775, Ser. Cornelius Lentulus Maluginensis, consul in 763, sought that province. He did not obtain it because it was considered sacrilegious for the flamen Dialis high priest of Jupiter to depart from his sacred duties, and therefore the lot was transferred to the next consular after him 2, and I do not know if L. Cassius Longinus, suffect consul in 764, or T. Statilius Taurus, ordinary consul of the same year, was sent, and indeed to govern Asia for the year 776. For, unless I am entirely mistaken, Maluginensis had not sought the proconsular command for that year (775), in the end of which Tacitus speaks of this matter, for it was not yet the time to enter that magistracy, but for the next mentioned year, 776 3. C. Fonteius Capito succeeded in 777, consul in 765, who, returning from the province, was called to judgment on charges fabricated by Vibius Serenus and was acquitted in 778 (Tacitus, Annals IV, 36). Who succeeded him is certainly not clear, but there is only a choice between C. Visellius Varro, who succeeded Capito in 765, and L. Munatius Plancus, consul in 766. For C. Silius, the colleague of Munatius, having been accused in 777 by the consul Varro, had forestalled his imminent condemnation with a voluntary death (Tacitus, Annals IV, 19).

1) Ryckius correctly conjectured that the praenomen first name of Lepidus should be written as Manius, not Marcus, although both the Medicean manuscript of Tacitus and the Capitoline Fasti agree in this error. His emendation is confirmed by an inscription in Muratori (p. 669, 4) and, above all others, by the Narbonensis tablet in Gruter (p. 229). Cf. griechische u. lat. inschrift. gesamm. Greek and Latin inscriptions collected by Richter, edited by Francke, p. 286.
2) Cf. Tacitus, Annals III, 71.
3) In the year 775, which we passed over, we suspect Asia was assigned either to L. (M.) Silanus, suffect consul from July 763, or to C. Velleius Tutor, who in the same year had been the suffect for Maluginensis himself.