Hirtuleia (gens)

The gens Hirtuleia was a minor family at Rome. It is known chiefly from two individuals: Hirtuleius, quaestor in an uncertain year following the consulship of Lucius Valerius Flaccus, consul in 86 BC, and Lucius Hirtuleius, the legate of Quintus Sertorius in Spain. It is possible, but unlikely that they were the same person.^[1]

Members

• Hirtuleius, the quaestor, amended the law of Valerius Flaccus, which had afforded debt relief by reducing the amount to be paid to creditors to a quadrans, or one fourth of the original sum. Hirtuleius' amendment tripled the amount to be paid, reducing the amount of relief accorded debtors from three quarters of their debts to one quarter, effectively eviscerating the law's original intent.^[2]
• Lucius Hirtuleius, the legate of Sertorius, earned three important victories in BC 79, defeating Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus; Therius, the legate of Quintus Caecilius Metellus, and Lucius Manilius, praetor of Gallia Narbonensis. But the following spring, he was defeated and slain by Metellus near Italica.^[3][4]

See also

List of Roman gentes

References

1. Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. II, p. 498 ("Hirtuleius").
2. Cicero, Pro Fonteio, 1.
3. Plutarch, "The Life of Sertorius", 12.
4. Frontinus, Strategemata, i. 5. § 8.

Bibliography

• Marcus Tullius Cicero, Pro Fonteio.
• Sextus Julius Frontinus, Strategemata.
• Plutarchus, Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans.
• Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, William Smith, ed., Little, Brown and Company, Boston (1849).