Quintus Servilius Caepio

Who is Quintus Servilius Caepio?

Quintus Servilius Caepio the Elder was a Roman statesman and general, consul in 106 BC, and proconsul of Cisalpine Gaul in 105 BC. He was the father of Quintus Servilius Caepio the Younger and the grandfather of Servilia Caepionis.

During his year of office as consul, he brought forward a law by which the jurymen were again to be chosen from the senators instead of the equites

In the Battle of Arausio in 105 BC, Caepio led one of the two forces against the Germanic tribes along with the consul Gnaeus Mallius Maximus.

While marching to Arausio Caepio plundered the temples of the town of Tolosa, ancient Tolouse, finding over 50,000 fifteen-pound bars of gold and 10,000 fifteen-pound bars of silver. Strabo reports a story told in his time of this semi-legendary treasure, the aurum Tolosanum, supposed to have been the "cursed gold" looted during the sack of Delphi during the Gallic invasion of the Balkans in 279 BC. The riches of Tolosa were shipped back to Rome, but only the silver made it; the gold was stolen by a band of marauders, who were believed to have been hired by Caepio himself. The Gold of Tolosa was never found, and was said to have been passed all the way down to the last heir of the Servilii Caepiones, Marcus Junius Brutus.