P.Lentulus P.f.Spinther

P.Cornelius P.f.P.n.Lentulus Spinther, born about 73-72 B.C. was the son of P.Cornelius Spinther, consul 57 B.C.

In 57 he received the toga virilis, was coopted into the college of augures, and adopted into the gens of the Manlii Torquati but never used that name.

Probably in about 53 B.C. he married Caecilia Metella, daughter of Q.Caecilius Metellus Celer, consul 60 B.C. and of the notorious Clodia, daughter of Ap.Claudius Pulcher, consul 79 B.C.

No doubt he accompanied his father to Greece in 49, but he was back in Italy in the summer of 45 where he divorced his wife on account of her adulterous affair with P.Dolabella. An affair which to Cicero’s fury - whose daughter had been married to Dolabella until 46 - had started in at least 47 B.C.

Approving Caesar’s murder, in which he falsely claimed to have taken part, he went to the East in 43 as quaestor to C.Trebonius, the proconsul of Asia 44-43 B.C., and after his chief’s murder at Smyrna (Izmir) in January 43 by P.Cornelius Dolabella, proconsul of Syria, he took over the administration of the province as pro quaestor pro praetore. During the years 43 and 42 he served under Cassius against Rhodes and was in command of Myra in Lycia under Brutus.

He seems to have been put to death after the battle of Philippi by Marcus Antonius and Octavianus in Oct./Nov. 42 B.C., probably because of his claiming a part in the murder of Caesar.

(Cicero’s letters: XI.13; XII.52,2; Appian B.C.II.119; Plut.Caes.67; for Metella XI.23, for her parents, ad Att.V.412-13, for her divorce, Horace, Sat.II.3.239)

His own reports of his activities in the Aegean area survive in letters to Cicero and to the Senate (ad Fam.XII.14, 15)