Scaevola

Related Category: Ancient History, Rome: Biographies

(Quintus Mucius Scaevola), d. 82 B.C., Roman jurist. He was tribune of the people (106 B.C.) and consul (95 B.C.) with Lucius Licinius Crassus (see under Crassus, family); together they collaborated on a law that caused a purge of the rolls of citizenship. The wholesale disfranchisement of allies under this law brought on the Social War. He was proconsular governor of Asia, where the people esteemed him highly. Later he was elected pontifex maximus, but his sacred inviolability did not prevent his murder in the proscription of Marius. He made a systematic compilation of the civil law.