A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology

8. Cn.ManliusCn. F. L. N. VULSO, was curule

aedile B. C. 197, praetor with Sicily as his province B. C. 195, and one of the triumvirs for founding a Latin colony in the territory of Thurii in B. C. 193, in which year he was an unsuccessful candidate for the consulship. (Liv. 33.25, 42, 43, 34.53, 35.9, 10.)

In B. C. 189 Cn. Manlius Vulso was consul with M. Fulvius Nobilior. He was sent into Asia in order to conclude the peace, which his successor Scipio Asiaticus had made with Antiochus, and to arrange the affairs of Asia. He arrived at Ephesus in the spring of B. C. 189, and as he was anxious to obtain both glory and booty he resolved to attack the Gallograeci or Galatians in Asia Minor without waiting for any formal instructions from the senate. He carried on the war with success against them, conquered in battle the three chief tribes into which they were divided, called the Tolistoboii, Tectosagi and Trocmi, and compelled them to submit unconditionally to the Roman power. After bringing this war to an end by the middle of the autumn, he led his troops into winter quarters. The Gallograeci had by their many conquests in Asia acquired immense wealth, a large portion of which now fell into the hands of Vulso and his army. (Liv. 38.12_27 ; Plb. 22.16-22; Zonar. 9.20; Appian, Syr. 39, 42.)

Manlius Vulso remained in Asia as proconsul in the following year, B. C. 188, when he formally concluded the treaty with Antiochus and settled the affairs of Asia. In the middle of the summer he crossed over from Asia into Europe, marched through Thrace into Macedonia and Epeirus, and passed the winter at Apollonia. In his march through Thrace his army suffered much from the heat and the attacks of the Thracians, and he lost a considerable part of the booty he had obtained in Asia. He reached Rome in B. C. 187 and demanded a triumph, which he obtained with difficulty inconsequence of the opposition of the majority of the ten commissioners, who had been appointed by the senate to conclude the peace with Antiochus in conjunction with Vulso. The triumph of Vulso was a brilliant one, but his campaign in Asia had a pernicious influence upon the morals of his countrymen. He had allowed his army every kind of licence, and his soldiers introduced into the city the luxuries of the East. (Liv. 38.37-41, 44_50, 39.6, 7; Plb. 22.24-27; Appian, Syr. 42, 43.) In B. C. 184 Vulso was an unsuccessful candidate for the censorship. (Liv. 39.40.)