Legend has Spurius Maelius, a wealthy plebeian,…
439 BCE
Legend has Spurius Maelius, a wealthy plebeian, buying up a large supply of grain and selling it at low prices to the Roman people during the severe famine of 440—439.
Lucius Minucius Augurinus, the patrician praefectus annonae (president of the market), thereupon accuses him of courting popularity with a view to making himself king; the cry is taken up.
Maelius, summoned in 439 before the aged Cincinnatus, specially appointed dictator to resolve the situation, refuses to appear, and is slain by magister equitum Gaius Servilius Ahala; his house is razed to the ground, his wheat distributed among the people, and his property confiscated.
The open space called Aequimaelium, on which his house had stood, preserves the memory of his death.
Cicero calls Ahala's deed a glorious one, but, whether Maelius entertained any ambitious projects or not, his summary execution was an act of murder, since by the Valerio-Horatian laws the dictator was bound to allow the right of appeal.
Ahala is brought to trial, and only escapes condemnation by going into voluntary exile.
A bill will be brought forward three years afterwards, in 436 BCE, by another Spurius Maelius, a tribune, for confiscating the property of Ahala, but it fails to pass.
(A related tradition, also discounted by most scholars, has Cincinnatus receiving a second dictatorship to check Maelius’s monarchial ambitions, then once again ceding the reins of power after the crisis ends.)
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