Lucius Caecilius Metellus Denter

Who is Lucius Caecilius Metellus Denter?

Lucius Caecilius Metellus Denter was consul in 284 BC, and praetor the year after. In this capacity he fell in the war against the Senones, and was succeeded by Manius Curius Dentatus.

Fischer, in his Römische Zeittafeln, makes him praetor and die in 285 BC, and in the year following he has him again as consul. Drumann denies the identity of the consul and the praetor, on the ground that it was not customary for a person to hold the praetorship the year after his consulship; but examples of such a mode of proceeding do occur, and Drumann's objection thus falls to the ground.

Denter may have been the father of Lucius Caecilius Metellus, consul in 251 and 247 BC. The latter's filiation is given as "L. f. C. n.", the son of Lucius and grandson of Gaius. In this case, Denter's father would have been Gaius Caecilius Metellus. An alternative hypothesis makes him the son or nephew of a Quintus Caecilius, supposedly tribune of the plebs in 316 BC. No corresponding individual appears in The Magistrates of the Roman Republic, or in the Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology.