366/1b. Annia (82-81 BC)

AR Denarius (Italy or Spain, 82-81 BC)

O/ C ANNI T F T N PRO COS EX S C around female bust r., draped and wearing diadem; scales before; winged caduceus behind; control-letter E with dot on either side below.

R/ Victory in quadriga r., holding reins in l. hand and palm-branch in r. hand; Q above; L FABI L F HISP in exergue.

3.13g; 18.5mm

Crawford 366/1b (18 obverse dies/20 reverse dies)

Gaius Annius (Luscus) & Lucius Fabius Hispaniensis:

Annius belonged to the plebeian gens Annia. The cognomen Luscus often used by older numismatists is unattested in ancient sources. His great-grandfather Titus Annius might already have been a moneyer between 194-190 BC (RRC 136, see the discussion here); his grandfather, also named Titus, was the first Annius to reach the consulship in 156; his father Titus, nicknamed Rufus, was consul in 128, and also moneyer in 144 (RRC 221).

Like his grandfather who opposed Tiberius Gracchus in 133 (Plutarch, Tib. Gracchus, 14), Annius was a member of the Optimates. Sallust indeed tells that he served in 108 under Caecilius Numidicus during the Jugurthine War, by protecting Leptis Magna with four cohorts (Jugurtha, 77). There is then a big gap in his biography, since he appears again as a Proconsul in Spain during Sulla's dictatorship in 82-81. As Broughton suggested (II, p. 529) Annius had probably been Praetor before, but the date is unknown. He most likely remained away from Italy during Cinna's hegemony and therefore could serve again when Sulla ousted the Populares in 82.

In 81, Annius was thus sent to Spain in order to fight Sertorius, a Proconsul who supported Cinna, but refused to give up his command to Sulla. Annius broke through the Pyrenees thanks to the murder of Livius Salinator, the legate sent by Sertorius to guard the pass, by a man named Calpurnius Lanarius. He then took Carthago Nova and defeated Sertorius in a naval battle, therefore recovering the situation in Spain for a couple of years; Sertorius fled to Madeira, or Mauretania (Plutarch, Sertorius, 7). Annius' biography abruptly ends here as he is never mentioned again in ancient sources.

Annius' proconsulship must have covered the two Spanish provinces (Ulterior and Citerior) since he was followed by two quaestors: Lucius Fabius L.f. Hispaniensis and Gaius Tarquitius P.f., both figuring on the reverse of his coins. Fabius' cognomen indicates that he already had a connection with Spain, hence why Annius took him in his expedition.

Strangely, a fragment from Sallust's Histories (III, 79) mentions Tarquitius and Hispaniensis, the latter being described as a "proscribed Senator", during the banquet where Sertorius was murdered by his lieutenant Marcus Perperna, therefore implying that they had defected to him before. Hispaniensis and Tarquitius must have shared Perperna's fate and were put to death by Pompey (cf. also Plutarch, Sertorius, 26, who does not name the two former quaestors). The reason behind these defections is unknown, but could be related to the lack of information about Annius after 81.

The identity of Hispaniensis and Tarquitius is not widely accepted and still debated by historians. For instance, Hinard thinks that the two quaestors could have been homonymous siblings of the traitors. I do think that the hypothesis of the two quaestors defecting to Sertorius after having killed Annius (or he could have died of old age and left them "alone" in Spain) is more convincing.

Bibliography:

- Plutarch's Sertorius, edited by Christoph F. Konrad, UNC Press Books, 1994.
- François Hinard, "Philologie, Prosopographie et Histoire à propos de Lucius Fabius Hispaniensis", in Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte, 40-1, 1991, p.113-119.

Collection : Roman Republic