Lucius Siccius Dentatus

Lucius Siccius Dentatus (514 BC?-450 BC?) was a Roman soldier, primus pilus and tribune, living in the 5th century BC. The cognomen Dentatus means "born with teeth".

Dentatus was a tribune in 454 BC. He was a champion of the plebeians in their struggle with the patricians. As a military man, Dentatus had fought in 120 battles, received 45 honorable wounds and several civic crowns. According to Pliny the Elder he won the Grass Crown. After his tribunate, he was murdered for his opposition to the decemvirs. He was eight times champion in single combat, with forty five scars on the front of his body and none on the rear, he is reported to have been awarded no less than eighteen hastae purae, twenty-five phalerae, 83 torques, more than 160 armillae, and twenty six coronae, of which fourteen were coronae civicae awarded for saving the life of a Roman citizen, eight coronae aureae, three coronae murales, and one corona obsidionalis or corona graminea, the highest honour for valour, awarded for the deliverer of a besieged army.

References

• Dionysius of Halicarnassus, X, 36-49 en XI, 25 sq
• Pliny the Elder, Naturalis historia, XXII. v
• George Ronald Watson, The Roman Soldier, pp 116. ISBN 0-500-27376-6 Thames and Hudson