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Aulus Verginius Tricostus Caeliomontanus was a Roman politician active in the fifth century BC and was consul in 469 BC.

Family

He was the son of Aulus Verginius Tricostus Caeliomontanus, consul in 494 BC, and possibly the father of Titus Verginius Tricostus Caeliomontanus (consul 448 BC), consul in 448 BC. Alternatively, Titus might have been the son of Tricostus's brother Spurius Verginius Tricostus Caeliomontanus, consul in 456 BC. Dionysius of Halicarnassus reports his cognomen as Nomentanus but the inscription on the Fasti Capitolini more closely resembles the name Caeliomontanus.

Biography

In 469 BC, he was consul with Titus Numicius Priscus as his colleague. At the beginning of his term, they each led separate campaigns against the Aequi and the Volsci who had both been setting fire to farmlands around Rome. Tricostus attacked the Aequi but faced difficulties, whereas Priscus fought the Volsci and captured Caenon, the port of Antium, which was the capital of the Volsci. He regrouped with Priscus in order to pillage the Sabine countryside in retaliation for a raid by the Sabines on Roman territory.

Two years later, in 467 BC, after having taken Antium from the Volsci, the Romans had established a colony there. Tricostus was, along with Titus Quinctius Capitolinus Barbatus and Publius Furius Medullinus Fusus, one of the three triumvirs (the triumviri agro dando) in charge of partitioning and distributing the lands of Antium to the colonists.

He is possibly the same person as the legate who served under the consul Titus Romilius Rocus Vaticanus against the Aequi in 455 BC.

Notes

1. Robert Maxwell Ogilvie, Commentary on Livy, books 1–5, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1965, pp. 404, 405.
2. ^ Broughton 1951, p. 31
3. Dionysius of Halicarnassus IX, 56
4. Livy II, 63
5. Livy III, 1.6
6. Dionysius of Halicarnassus IX, 59.2
7. Broughton 1951, p. 32
8. Livy III, 1.2-5
9. Dionysius of Halicarnassus IX, 59.1-3
10. Dionysius, x, 49.2
11. Broughton, vol i, pp.42

Bibliography

Primary sources

• Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities, Book IX
• Livy, The History of Rome, Books II-III

Secondary sources

• Broughton, Thomas Robert Shannon (1951), The Magistrates of the Roman Republic, Philological Monograph No. 15, New York: American Philological Association, ISBN 0-89130-811-3

• 5th-century BC Roman consuls
• Verginii