Manius Curius Dentatus

Who was Manius Curius Dentatus?

Manius Curius Dentatus, son of Manius, was a three-time consul and a plebeian hero of the Roman Republic, noted for ending the Samnite War. According to Pliny, he was born with teeth, thus earning the cognomen Dentatus, "Toothy."

Dentatus was a tribune of the plebs sometime between 298 and 291 BC. As tribune, he foiled efforts by the interrex Appius Claudius Caecus to keep plebeian candidates out of the consular elections. If his tribunate is dated to 291, his actions advanced his own candidacy, but since Appius served three times as interrex, the earliest date accords better with the timeline of Dentatus's own career.

Dentatus served his first term as consul in 290 BC, during which time he defeated both the Samnites and Sabines and celebrated two triumphs. Returning home he took on a massive public works project, partly draining Lake Velinus.

In 283, Dentatus filled the praetorship of L. Caecilius Metellus Denter after the latter was killed in the Battle of Arretium. Polybius says Dentatus drove the Gauls from their territory, clearing the way for the establishment of a colony at Sena.

As consul again in 275 BC, Dentatus fought Pyrrhus in the inconclusive Battle of Beneventum which nevertheless forced Pyrrhus out of Italy. As a result, he held a consecutive consulship, defeating the Lucani in the following year and earning an ovation. He was censor in 272, and in 270 he was elected as one of two commissioners to oversee construction of the Anio Vetus, Rome's second aqueduct, for which he used his personal share of the booty from his recent victories. He died during the project, which was completed under his fellow commissioner M. Fulvius Flaccus.