Aulus Terentius Varro Murena (died 24 BC) was a Roman general and politician of the 1st century BC.
Biography Murena was the natural born son of Aulus Terentius Varro,Smith's Biography Murena and adopted brother to Lucius Licinius Varro Murena. He was well connected to the Augustan regime,Wells, pg. 53 with his sister, Terentia, married to Gaius Maecenas, the prominent adviser and friend of Augustus and patron of the arts,Lightman, A to Z of ancient Greek and Roman women, pg. 312 while his half-brother, Gaius Proculeius, was an intimate friend of Augustus during his rise to power.Syme, pg. 358
Augustus dispatched Murena to lead an expedition against the Salassi tribe of the Aosta Valley region in the northwestern Alps in 25 BC.Davies, pg. 257 The Salassi had proved troublesome to Roman armies using the Great St Bernard pass, which, as the shortest route from Italy to the Upper Rhine river, had become strategically vital to the Romans since the completion of Julius Caesar's conquest of Gaul in 51 BC. The Salassi were utterly defeated and, according to Strabo, Murena deported and sold into slavery 44,000 tribespeople. According to Cassius Dio, he sold only males of military age and only for an indenture-term of 20 years.Dio 53.25 In 24 BC, Murena established a Roman colony of 3,000 settlers in the heart of Salassi country - Augusta Praetoria Salassorum (Aosta, Italy).Strabo IV.6.7; Davies, pg. 257
Murena was nominated to be Consul, with Augustus, for the year 23 BC, but died shortly before his term in office began.Swan, pg. 240 His replacement was Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso.Raaflaub, pg. 426 Shortly after Murena's death, his brother by adoption, Lucius Licinius Varro Murena, was accused of conspiring with Fannius Caepio against Augustus.Clifford Ando, Imperial ideology and provincial loyalty in the Roman Empire, pg. 140 140
Sources
Ancient Dio Cassius Roman History (c. 130 AD) Strabo Geographica (c. 10 AD)
Modern Ando, Clifford, Imperial ideology and provincial loyalty in the Roman Empire, University of California Press, 2000 Davies, Mark; Swain, Hilary; Davies, Mark Everson, Aspects of Roman history, 82 BC-AD 14: a source-based approach, Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2010 Raaflaub, Kurt A.; Toher, Mark, Between republic and empire: interpretations of Augustus and his principate, University of California Press, 1993 Smith's Dictionary of Roman Biography and Mythology (1873) Swan, Michael, The Consular Fasti of 23 B.C. and the Conspiracy of Varro Murena, Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, Volume 71, pgs. 235 – 247, Harvard University Press, 1967 Syme, Ronald, The Roman Revolution, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1939 Wells, Colin Michael, The Roman Empire, Harvard University Press, 2004
References