Sextius is most noted for giving his name to Aquae Sextiae, "the Baths of Sextius," a site of
thermal springs that is in modern-day
Aix-en-Provence. There he established a garrison (castellum) below the Saluvian
oppidum of
Entremont.[2]
Sextius played a significant role in the military operations, concluded by
Domitius Ahenobarbus and
Fabius Maximus around 120 BC, that led to the annexation of
Transalpine Gaul as a
Roman province. He and Fulvius Flaccus were able to create a mile-wide
line of communication linking the territory of longtime Roman ally Massilia (present-day
Marseilles) to
Cisalpine Gaul, already under Roman control.[3] He was given a
triumph for victories over the three Gallic nations in 122.
Ara Calvini
Around 92 BC, a C. Sextius Calvinus of praetorian rank restored an
altar dedicated to sei deo sei divae ("whichever god or goddess").[4] Although most often identified as the son of the consul of 124 BC,[5] the elder Sextius is believed by
E. Badian to have been responsible for the
inscription.[6]
The small altar was found near
Sant'Anastasia on the lower west part of the
Palatine Hill in 1829. Made of
travertine, it has the hourglass shape that came into use in Rome around the time of the
Second Punic War. The Ara Calvini ("Altar of Calvinus"), sometimes called the Ara Dei Ignoti ("Altar of the Unknown God"), is in the collections of the Antiquario Palatino (Palatine Hill Museum).[7]
^T.R.S. Broughton, The Magistrates of the Roman Republic (American Philological Association, 1951, reprinted 1986), pp. 511, 512 (note 1), 515.
^H.H. Scullard, From the Gracchi to Nero: A History of Rome from 133 B.C. to A.D. 68 (Routledge, 1988, 5th ed.), p. 40
online.
^Andrew Lintott, "The Roman Empire and Its Problems in the Late Second Century," in The Cambridge Ancient History (Cambridge University Press, 1994, 2nd rev. ed.), p. 24
online.
^Lawrence Richardson, A New Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992), p. 20
online. See also
Samuel Ball Platner, The Topography and Monuments of Ancient Rome (Allyn and Bacon, 1904, 2nd ed.), p. 138
online for transcription.
^Andrew Lintott, Cicero as Evidence: A Historian's Companion (Oxford University Press, 2008), p. 50, note 25
online.
^E. Badian, review of
A. Degrassi, CIL. Auctarium. Inscriptiones Latinae Liberae Rei Publicae: Imagines, in Journal of Roman Studies 58 (1968), p. 244, arguing that the younger Sextius never reached the praetorship; reiterated by
T. Corey Brennan, The Praetorship in the Roman Republic (Oxford University Press, 2000), vol. 1, p. 298, note 212, and vol. 2, p. 902, note 156. Cicero speaks of the son (Brutus 130 and De Oratore 2.246 and 249) as an accomplished orator who suffered from ill health.
^Richardson, A New Topographical Dictionary, pp. 20–21.
^Broughton points out that Eutropius has confused the name of Sextius with that of
Domitius, his successor, and is further incorrect in saying that Sextius's consular colleague
G. Cassius Longinus took part in the Gallic war and triumph.