Quintus Servilius Caepio

Quintus Servilius Caepio lost the largest army Rome ever put in the field, and is suspected of stealing the gold of Toulouse. He was consul in 106 BC, from one of the proudest patrician families, and was sent to Gaul where the Cimbri and Teutones were moving through the province. At Tolosa, modern Toulouse, he seized the treasure of a sanctuary — some fifty thousand bars of gold and a hundred thousand of silver by one wildly inflated account, and in any version an enormous quantity, said to have been taken from Delphi by Gauls two centuries earlier. It was sent to Massilia under escort and never arrived. The escort was killed and the gold vanished, and Roman opinion concluded that Caepio had arranged it. The phrase aurum Tolosanum, the gold of Toulouse, became a proverb for wealth that brings ruin. In 105 BC he was proconsul in Gaul alongside the consul Gnaeus Mallius Maximus, a new man he refused to take orders from or camp beside. Two Roman armies faced the Cimbri on opposite banks of the Rhône, separately, because their commanders would not speak to each other. At Arausio on 6 October the Cimbri destroyed both in succession. The ancient figure of 80,000 soldiers and 40,000 servants is not reliable and the disaster was on the scale of Cannae. Caepio survived. He was stripped of his command and citizenship, his property confiscated, and he died in exile. Marius was elected consul five times in succession to deal with the consequences.

• Lived: 150 BCE – 90 BCE
• Nationality: Roman
• Roles: general