Tubulus
- a Roman cognomen in the gens Hostilia: L. Hostilius Tubulus, a praetor A. U. C. 611, Lucil. ap. Cic. N. D. 1, 23, 63; Cic. Att. 12, 5, 3; id. Fin. 4, 28, 77; 5, 22, 62.
the name of a family of the Hostilia gens.
1. C. Hostilius Tubulus, praetor urbanus B. C. 209, was stationed in Etruria in the following year (B. C. 208) as propraetor with the command of two legions. He received orders from the senate to keep an especial watch upon Arretium, which was suspected of an inclination to revolt to Hannibal, and he therefore took away as hostages one hundred and twenty children of the senators of the town. Next year (B. C. 207) Tubulus was sent from Etruria to Tarentum, and in the course of the same year from the latter place to Capua; but while marching to Capua he fell upon Hannibal's army, killed four thousand men, and took nine standards. He continued in the command at Capua till the end of B. C. 203. (Liv. 27.6, 7, 11, 22, 24, 35, 40, xxviii, 10, 29.13.)
2. L. Hostilius Tubulus, praetor B. C. 142, received bribes in such an open manner, when he was presiding at a trial for murder, that in the following year P. Scaevola, the tribune of the plebs, proposed and carried a plebiscitum for an inquiry into his conduct; whereupon Tubulus forth with went into exile. Cicero more than once speaks of him as one of the vilest of men, and quotes a passage of Lucilius, in which the name of Tubulus occurs as an instance of a sacrilegious wretch. (Cic. Att. 12.5.3, de Fin. 2.16, 4.28, 5.22, de Nat. Deor. 1.23, 3.30, pro Scaur. 1.) According to Asconius (in Scaur. p. 23, ed. Orelli) Tubulus was brought back from exile on account of his numerous crimes, and took poison of his own accord, to escape being put to death in prison.
The following coin was struck by a L. Hostilius Tubulus, but it is doubtful whether by the same person as the preceding. It has on the obverse the head of Pallas, and on the reverse a laurel wreath with the legend L. H. TVB. (i. e. L. Hostilius Tubulus), and underneath Roma. (Eckhel, vol. v. p. 227.)