person
Quintus Caecilius Metellus Numidicus
Metellus Numidicus
Roman consul 109 BC, victor over Jugurtha; refused to swear to Saturninus's agrarian law in 100 BC and went into exile rather than yield, returning the next year. The model of dignified retreat.
Reading notes
- Ad Atticum 1.16 §4 the books of Metellus Numidicus
Q. Caecilius Metellus Numidicus, the upright consul of 109 BC whose written deposition jurors once refused to read out of respect. Cicero cites it as a precedent for the honour shown him here.
- Ad Familiares 1.9 §16 Quintus Metellus son of Lucius
Q. Caecilius Metellus Numidicus (cos. 109), who chose exile in 100 BC rather than swear to Saturninus's law and returned with dignity intact. Cicero offers him as the model of unbroken spirit and contrasts his own grander, whole-commonwealth recall.
- Against Verres, Second Hearing, Book IV §147 Numidicus ... the true and German Metellus
Q. Caecilius Metellus Numidicus (cos 109 BC), the strict consular, the type of senatorial uprightness; as patron of Lucullus's case had refused to lend his own praise even to his sister's husband. Cicero contrasts him with the new Metellus, L. Caecilius Metellus the praetor of 70 BC, who arranged Verres's praises by force and fear.
- On His Return: To the Citizens §6 Q. Metellus
Q. Caecilius Metellus Numidicus, consul 109 BC, driven into exile in 100 BC for refusing the oath to Saturninus's land law and recalled the next year through the prayers of his kinsmen. Cicero's stock exemplum of a noble exile, contrasted with his own kinless plight.