Quintus Lutatius Catulus

Quintus Lutatius Catulus was consul in 78 BC and led the senatorial establishment against the men who eventually dismantled it. He was the son of the Catulus who had shared the victory over the Cimbri with Marius in 101 BC and who had been driven to suicide during Marius's return to Rome in 87 — which gave him a personal reason for the politics he spent his life on. He was a supporter of Sulla and was elected consul alongside Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, a man of the opposite faction, in the year Sulla died. Lepidus tried to overturn the Sullan settlement, raised troops in Etruria, and marched on Rome in 77 BC. Catulus defeated him near the Milvian Bridge and drove the remnant to Sardinia. He was then the leading figure of the optimates for twenty years, and the argument he lost repeatedly was about extraordinary commands. He opposed the Gabinian law of 67 BC giving Pompey sweeping authority over the whole Mediterranean against the pirates, and the Manilian law the following year giving him the eastern war, on the ground that concentrating such power in one man was incompatible with a republic. He was right and was voted down each time. He restored the Temple of Jupiter on the Capitol after the fire of 83 BC and had his name inscribed on it, which Caesar tried to have erased. He lost the election for pontifex maximus to Caesar in 63 BC despite being far senior, and died about two years later.

• Lived: 149 BCE – 87 BCE
• Nationality: Roman
• Roles: general, ruler