Decimus Laelius Balbus

Decimus Laelius Balbus was a Roman senator, who was active during the reign of Augustus. He was consul in 6 BC with Gaius Antistius Vetus as his colleague.[1] Balbus was the grandson of Decimus Laelius, plebeian tribune in 54 BC, and thus a novus homo.

Balbus was one of the Quindecimviri sacris faciundis who organized the Secular Games in 17 BC.[2] Ronald Syme notes his membership in this prestigious Roman priesthood led to Balbus entering the consulate twelve years later. "That fact itself renders this novus homo not a little enigmatic," Syme writes, "but consecrates the value and significance of priesthoods as well as consulships."[3]

References
  1. Alison E. Cooley, The Cambridge Manual of Latin Epigraphy (Cambridge: University Press, 2012), p. 458
  2. CIL VI, 32323
  3. Syme, The Augustan Aristocracy (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986), p. 78


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