Ma'ximus, Carvi'lius
2. SP. CARVILIUS, SP. F. C. N. MAXIMUS RUGA, son of No. 1, was consul, B. C. 234, with L. Postumius Albinus, and carried on war first against the Corsicans and then against the Sardinians: according to the Fasti Capitolini he obtained a triumph over the latter people. (
Zonar. 8.18.) he was consul a second time in B. C. 228 with Q. Fabius Maximus Verrucossus, in which year, according to Cicero (
Cato, 4), he did not resist, like his colleague, the agrarian law of the tribune C. Flaminius for the division of the lands in Cisalpine Gaul. Polybius (
2.21), however, places the agrarian law of C. Flaminius four years earlier, in the consulship of M. Aemilius Lepidus, B. C. 232.
Carvilius is not mentioned again till the year of the fatal battle of Cannae, B. C. 216, when he proposed, in order to fill up the numbers of the senate and to unite the Latin allies more closely to the Romans in this their season of adversity, that the vacancies in the senate should be supplied by electing two senators from each one of the Latin tribes, but his proposition was rejected with the utmost indignation and contempt.
He died in B. C. 212, at which time he was augur. (
Liv. 23.22,
26.23.)
Carvilius is related to have been the first person who divorced his wife, which he is said to have done on the ground of barrenness, but his conduct was generally disapproved. Whether, however, this was really the first instance of divorce at Rome may be questioned. (
Gel. 4.3;
V. Max. 2.1.4;
Dionys. A. R. 2.25; Niebuhr,
Hist. of Rome, vol. iii. p. 355.)
