Piso
1.
Calpurnius Piso, was taken prisoner at the battle of Cannae, B. C. 216, and is said to have been sent with two others to Rome to negotiate the release of the prisoners, which proposition the senate refused to entertain.
He was praetor urbanus in B. C. 211, and on the expiration of his year of office was sent as propraetor into Etruria B. C. 210. From thence he was commanded by the dictator, Q. Fulvius Flaccus, to take the command of the army at Capua ; but next year (B. C. 209) the senate again entrusted Etruria to him. (
Liv. 22.61,
25.41,
26.10,
15,
21,
28,
27.6,
7,
21.) Piso in his praetorship proposed to the senate, that the Ludi Apollinares, which had been exhibited for the first time in the preceding year (B. C. 212), should be repeated, and should be celebrated in future annually.
The senate passed a decree to this effect. (
Liv. 26.23;
Macr. 1.13 ; Festus, p. 326, ed. Müller, where he is erroneously called
Maarcus instead of
Caius.) The establishment of these games by their ancestor was commemorated on coins by the Pisones in later times. Of these coins, of which a vast number is extant, a specimen is annexed.
The obverse represents the head of Apollo, the reverse a horseman riding at full speed, in allusion to the equestrian games, which formed part of the festival. Who the L. Piso Frugi was that caused them to be struck, cannot be determined. (Eckhel, vol. v. p. 158.)
