Quintus Pleminius - The Legal Case

The Legal Case

The senate sent a ten-man commission headed by Marcus Pomponius Matho to investigate, along with two tribunes of the plebs and an aedile. Matho was the praetor and propraetor assigned to Sicily from 204 to 202 BC, and had been authorized to recall Scipio if necessary, but the commission had no judicial powers. Its size was virtually unprecedented, and reflects both the importance of the case and its ultimate target: Scipio, not merely Pleminius. The difficulty and delicacy of Matho's position should not be underestimated; the legal question was whether a high-level magistrate should be held responsible for actions committed by an officer to whom he had delegated imperium on his own authority. Since Matho's own imperium was inferior to that of Scipio, there was a risk that if charged and found guilty, the proconsul would ignore the praetor and simply exit the province to pursue his African venture. Scipio, however, dazzled the commission, while Pleminius was left to take the fall for plundering the Temple of Proserpina and murdering the tribunes Publius Matienus and Marcus Sergius. The legates were able to report that Pleminius had acted neither on Scipio's orders nor according to his wishes (neque iussu neque voluntate).