C. Acilius Glabrio
was quaestor in B. C. 203, and tribune of the plebs in 197, when he brought forward a rogation for planting five colonies on the western coast of Italy, in order probably to repair the depopulation caused by the war with Hannibal. (Liv. 32.29.) Glabrio acted as interpreter to the Athenian embassy in B. C. 155, when the three philosophers, Carneades, Diogenes, and Critolaus came as envoys to Rome. [CARNEADES.] (Gel. 7.14; Plut. Cat. Ma. 22; Macr. 1.5.) Glabrio was at this time advanced in years, of senatorian rank; and Plutarch calls him a distinguished senator (l.c.).
Works
Greek History of Rome
He wrote in Greek a history of Rome from the earliest period to his own times. This work is cited by Dionysius (3.77), by Cicero (de Off. 3.32), by Plutarch (Romul. 21), and by the author de Orig. Gent. Rom. ( 10.2). It was translated into Latin by one Claudius, and his version is cited by Livy, under the titles of Annales Aciliani (25.39) and Libri Aciliani (35.14). We perhaps read a passage borrowed or adapted from the work of Glabrio in Appian (Syriac. 10).
Poetic fragment
Atilius Fortunatianus (de Art. Metric. p. 2680, ed. Putsch) ascribes the Saturnian verse
Fundit, fugat, prosternit maximas legiones,
to an Acilius Glabrio.
Further Information
Krause, Vet. Hist. Rom. Fragm. p. 84.
From William Smith (ed.), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. Text provided under a CC BY-SA license by Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Tufts University. Data accessed from https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-pdlrefwk/ on 17 October 2026.