Lucius Papirius Cursor

Lucius Papirius Cursor (c.365–after 310 BC)^[i] was a celebrated politician and general of the early Roman Republic, who was five times consul, three times magister equitum, and twice dictator. He was the most important Roman commander during the Second Samnite War (327–304 BC), during which he received three triumphs.

He was a member of the patrician gens Papiria of ancient Rome. Cursor's strictness was proverbial; he was a man of immense bodily strength, while his bravery was beyond dispute. He was given the cognomen Cursor^[1] from his swiftness of foot.^[2]

Most of what is known of Cursor's life comes from the monumental History of Rome written by Livy during the reign of Augustus. Livy portrayed Cursor as an invincible hero, who avenged the humiliation of the Caudine Forks in 321 BC, when the Roman army had to pass under the yoke. In a famous digression, he even wrote that had Alexander the Great turned his army against Rome, he would have met his match with Cursor. With this narrative, Livy participated in the Roman propaganda sponsored by Augustus, which idealised several figures of the first part of the Republic. As a result, it is difficult to separate his life from the fiction elaborated by later Roman authors.

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