Home > Appius Claudius Caecus

He was a censor in 312 BC during the Second Samnite War. He sought support from the lower classes, allowing sons of freed slaves to serve in the Senate, and extending voting privileges to men in the rural tribes who did not own land. During the war he advocated the founding of Roman colonies throughout Latium and Campania to serve as fortifications against the Samnites and Etruscans.

During his term as censor, which lasted five years (contrary to the legal term of 18 months), he built the Appian Way ( Latin: Via Appia), an important and famous road between Rome and CapuaCapua (modern Santa Maria di Capua Vetere was the chief ancient city of Campania, and one of the most important towns of ancient Italy, situated 25 km (16 mi) north of Neapolis, on the northeastern edge of the Campanian plain. History Capua's site, in a p, as well as the first aqueductThis article is about the structure aqueduct, for the racecourse see Aqueduct Racetrack. An aqueduct is an artificial (man-made) channel that is constructed to convey water (properly called a canal) from one location to another. Many aqueducts are raised in Rome, the Aqua Appia. He also published for the first time a list of legal procedures and the legal calendar, knowledge of which, until that time, had been reserved for the pontifices, the priests. He was also concerned with literatureLiterature is literally "an acquaintance with letters" as in the first sense given in the Oxford English Dictionary; the term has, however, generally come to identify a collection of texts. The word "literature" spelled with a lower-case "l" can refer to and rhetoricRhetoric (from Greek ρητωρ, rhetor "orator") is one of the three original liberal arts or trivium (the other members are dialectic and grammar). While it has meant many different things during its 2500-year history, it is generally d, and instituted reforms in Latin orthographyThe orthography of a language is the set of rules of how to write correctly in the language. The term is derived from Greek omicron;ρθ&omicron ortho ("correct") and gamma;ραφο&sigmaf graphos ("that writes") and, in today's.

He later served as consulFor modern diplomatic consuls see Consulate general. Consul (abbrev. was the highest elected office of the Roman Republic and an appointive office under the Empire. Under the Republic, the minimum age of election to consul for patricians was 40 years of a twice, in 307 BCCenturies: 5th century BC 4th century BC 3rd century BC Decades: 350s BC 340s BC 330s BC 320s BC 310s BC 300s BC 290s BC 280s BC 270s BC 260s BC 250s BC 312 BC 311 BC 310 BC 309 BC 308 BC 307 BC 306 BC 305 BC 304 BC 303 BC 302 BC Births Deaths Events Sege and 296 BCCenturies: 4th century BC 3rd century BC 2nd century BC Decades: 340s BC 330s BC 320s BC 310s BC 300s BC 290s BC 280s BC 270s BC 260s BC 250s BC 240s BC 301 BC 300 BC 299 BC 298 BC 297 BC 296 BC 295 BC 294 BC 293 BC 292 BC 291 BC Events The temple to Bell, and in 292 BC and 285 BC he was appointed dictator. In 280 BC, after he had gone blind (because of a curse, according to Livy), he gave a famous speech against Cineas, an envoy of Pyrrhus of Epirus, declaring that Rome would never surrender. This is the first recorded political speech in Latin, and is the source of the saying "every man is the architect of his own fortune."

His son was the consul Publius Claudius Pulcher, his grandson the consul Appius Claudius Caudex.

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