person
Titus Ampius Balbus
T. Ampius Balbus
also: T. Ampio Balbo, T. Ampius Balbus, Ampius Balbus
A senator and close friend of Cicero; tribune 63 BC, praetor c. 59, governor of Asia and then Cilicia, and a committed Pompeian in the civil war who was later pardoned by Caesar through Cicero's intercession. In Fam. 13.70 Cicero, citing his intimate friendship with Balbus, recommends Balbus's freedman T. Ampius Menander to the proconsul P. Servilius.
Reading notes
- Ad Familiares 1.3 §2 what T. Ampius decreed about his case
T. Ampius Balbus, a previous proconsul (of Asia, c. 58 BC), had issued a ruling in Trebonius's favour; Cicero asks Lentulus to uphold his predecessor's decree, the continuity of edicts being a normal courtesy between governors.
- Ad Familiares 2.16 §3 T.\ Ampius's report
T. Ampius Balbus, praetor 57 BC and a loyal Pompeian; he was apparently relaying intelligence about military movements or political maneuvers that made Cicero recoil from abandoning Rome.
- Ad Familiares 6.12 §3 the trumpet of the civil war
The nickname 'tuba belli civilis' (trumpet of the civil war) was attached to T. Ampius Balbus by Caesar's partisans, evidently because of his vigorous public advocacy for the Pompeian cause, his rhetorical energy, or both; the phrase is otherwise unattested outside this letter.
- Ad Familiares 6.12 §4 your magistracies had fallen at the very turning-points of our common safety
Ampius Balbus was tribune 63 BC (during the Catilinarian crisis) and later governed Asia and Cilicia; Cicero flatters him by presenting his entire career as spent at history's hinge-points, the better to console him for the final reversal.
- Ad Familiares 6.12 §5 handing down to memory the deeds of brave men
Ampius Balbus was known as a writer of historical memoirs, including anecdotes about Julius Caesar himself; Cicero pointedly reminds him that a man who celebrates exemplary Romans must himself be prepared to live up to those exempla.