Lucius Calpurnius Piso Frugi

Lucius Calpurnius Piso Frugi ( – 112 BC) was a Roman politician and historian. He created the first permanent jury court in Rome (quaestio perpetua) to try cases related to provincial corruption during his plebeian tribunate in 146 BC. He also fought, not entirely successfully, in the First Servile War. He was consul in 133 BC and censor in 120 BC. Later in life, he wrote the Annales, a history of Rome from its foundation through to at least 146 BC and probably his own time; only 49 fragments of the Annales survive, preserved in other works. Consisting of seven or eight books, it was the first history to split up Roman history into a year-by-year account. Family Piso belonged to the plebeian gens Calpurnia, which emerged during the First Punic War and was of Etruscan descent. The Pisones were the most important family of the gens and remained on the fore of Roman politics during the Empire; their first member was Gaius Calpurnius Piso, praetor in 211, also grandfather of this Piso. The praetor of 211 had two sons, Gaius, the first consul of the gens in 180 who also earned a triumph for his successful command in Spain in 186, and Lucius, only known as ambassador to the Achaean League in 198; the latter was the father of the historian. The next generation of the Calpurnii Pisones had an impressive number of consuls – four in 16 years – as in addition to Piso's own consulship in 133, his cousins Lucius Caesoninus, Gnaeus, and Quintus were also consuls, respectively in 148, 138 and 135. Piso was likely born between 182 and 179.