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Titus Labienus was an orator and historian during the reign of
Augustus Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus (born Gaius Octavius; 23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14), also known as Octavian (), was the founder of the Roman Empire, who reigned as the first Roman emperor from 27 BC until his death in A ...
. He killed himself when the Roman Senate had his books burned.
Caligula Gaius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (31 August 12 – 24 January 41), also called Gaius and Caligula (), was Roman emperor from AD 37 until his assassination in 41. He was the son of the Roman general Germanicus and Augustus' granddaughter Ag ...
later had these books restored. He wrote works of oratory and history.


Life

Almost nothing is known of his early life. He was of the Labiena gens and grew up poor. During his lifetime,
Augustus Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus (born Gaius Octavius; 23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14), also known as Octavian (), was the founder of the Roman Empire, who reigned as the first Roman emperor from 27 BC until his death in A ...
had become the first Roman emperor. Titus Labienus opposed
Augustus Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus (born Gaius Octavius; 23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14), also known as Octavian (), was the founder of the Roman Empire, who reigned as the first Roman emperor from 27 BC until his death in A ...
, however, and even supported the non-existent Pompeian cause. Titus Labienus, in his historical works, criticized Rome's class structure, which led to his insulting epithet, Rabienus ("Mad Dog"). Simon Hornblower and Antony Spawforth, "Labienus, Titus", Def. 2, The Oxford Classical Dictionary, (New York: Oxford University Press). His writings contained anti-imperial material, thus, when he recited his works in public, he would have to omit certain sections. Instead, he said that these unread sections should be read after his death.
Elaine Fantham Elaine Fantham (born Elaine Crosthwaite, 25 May 1933 – 11 July 2016) was a British-Canadian classicist whose expertise lay particularly in Latin literature, especially comedy, epic poetry and rhetoric, and in the social history of Roman women. ...
, ''Roman Literary Culture: From Cicero to Apuleius'', (New York: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999) 124.
Despite all of this, Titus Labienus was recognized as a great orator. During his waning years, Roman Emperor Augustus, who did not push censorship during most of his reign, began to put strict regulations on writing and began to censor writings. These new regulations upset Titus Labienus, as he wanted to write and teach without government restrictions. During the last decade of his rule, Augustus created laws with punishments for those voicing a dissenting opinion against the state in writing. Depending on how guilty one was or how serious the crime was, either one or all of one's life works were to be burned. It was teachers like Titus Labienus who were affected by this censorship, which led to his trial from A.D. 6 to 8, the first of its kind, where the Roman Senate found him guilty of literary treason.


Death

Upon hearing that he was guilty of literary treason and that his library was to be burnt, Titus Labienus decided to kill himself. He went to the ancestors' mausoleum, walled himself up, and committed suicide. He refused cremation of his body.


Legacy

With his death, attention was brought to imperial censorship. Some 30 years later,
Caligula Gaius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (31 August 12 – 24 January 41), also called Gaius and Caligula (), was Roman emperor from AD 37 until his assassination in 41. He was the son of the Roman general Germanicus and Augustus' granddaughter Ag ...
began rolling back some of this censorship, yet simultaneously, he still pushed this censorship. He permitted the works of Titus Labienus, along with several others, like Cassius Severus, to be read, saying that it was best to have all events recorded.Anthony A. Barrett, Caligula: The Corruption of Power, (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1990) 66–67. Near the end of the century, his works were listed as standard teaching material by the educator
Quintilian Marcus Fabius Quintilianus (; 35 – 100 AD) was a Roman educator and rhetorician born in Hispania, widely referred to in medieval schools of rhetoric and in Renaissance writing. In English translation, he is usually referred to as Quin ...
.Frederick H. Cramer, "Book Burning and Censorship in Ancient Rome: A Chapter from the History of Freedom of Speech", Sacred Heart Schools, Lucas Family Library, Atherton, CA, 29 November 2008 - available online on


See also

* Labiena (gens)


References


Bibliography

*Barrett, Anthony A., ''Caligula The Corruption of Power.'' New Haven, CT: Yale UP, 1990. 66–67.
Cramer, Frederick H. "Book Burning and Censorship in Ancient Rome: A Chapter from the History of Freedom of Speech".
JSTOR. Lucas Family Library, Atherton. 29 November 2008 . *Fantham, Elaine, ''Roman Literary Culture : From Cicero to Apuleius.'' New York: Johns Hopkins UP, 1999. 124–24. Google. 29 Nov. 2008 - available on
Google Books Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search, Google Print, and by its code-name Project Ocean) is a service from Google that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical charac ...
*Hornblower, Simon, and Spawforth, Anthony. "Labienus, Titus." Def. 2. ''The Oxford Classical Dictionary.'' New York: Oxford University Press, 1996. *Rahyab, Susan
MA Thesis: Censorship and Book-Burning in Imperial Rome and Egypt
CUNY Academic Works (CUNY Libraries), 2020. {{DEFAULTSORT:Labienus, Titus Latin historians 1st-century Romans 1st-century historians Labieni