A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology

1. P.FuriusSp. F. M. N. PHILUS, was consul B. C. 223 with C. Flaminius, and accompanied his colleague in his campaign against the Gauls in the north of Italy. [FLAMINIUS, No. 1.] He was elected praetor in the third year of the second Punic war, B. C. 216, when he obtained the jurisdictio inter cices Romcanos et peregrinos ; and after the fatal battle of Cannae in this year, he and his colleague M. Pomponius Matho summoned the senate to take measures for the defence of the city. Shortly afterwards he received the fleet from M. Claudiius Marcellus, with which he proceeded to Africa, but having been severely wounded in an engagement off the coast he returned to Lilybaeum. In B. C. 214 he was censor with M. Atilius Regulus, but he died at the beginning of the following year, before the solemn purification (lustrumn) of the people had been performed; and Regulus accordingly, as was usual in such cases, resigned his office. These censors visited with severity all persons who had failed in their duty to their country during the great calamities which Rome had lately experienced. They reduced to the condition of aerarians all the young nobles, who had formed the project of leaving Italy after the battle of Cannae, among whom was L. Caecilius Metellus, who was quaestor in the year of their consulship, B. C. 214. As, however, Metellus was elected tribune of the plebs for the following year notwithstanding this degradation, he attempted to bring the censors to trial before the people, immediately after entering upon his office, but was prevented by the other tribunes from prosecuting such an unprecedented course. [METELLUS, No. 3.] Philus was also one of the augurs at the time of his death. (Liv. 22.35, 55, 57, 23.21, 24.11, 18, 43, 25.2; V. Max. 2.9.8.)