Marcus Baebius Tamphilus

Marcus Baebius Tamphilus was a consul of the Roman Republic in 181 BC along with P. Cornelius Cethegus. Baebius is credited with reform legislation pertaining to campaigns for political offices and electoral bribery (ambitus). The Lex Baebia was the first bribery law in Rome and had long-term impact on Roman administrative practices in the provinces.

Baebius played an important diplomatic and military role in the Roman-Syrian War. In carrying out the deportation of the Apuani of Liguria for the purpose of occupying their territory, Baebius is also a significant figure in tracing the history of Roman expansionism.

During the Republican era, all men with the family name Baebius who are known to have held the highest magistracies belong to the branch distinguished by the cognomen Tamphilus. Marcus's brother Gnaeus was consul in 182 BC, in an unusual instance of two brothers holding the office in succession. Their father, Quintus, was a praetor; the Q. Baebius Tamphilus who was tribune of the plebs in 200 may have been the eldest of his sons.

M. Baebius Tamphilus was a tribune of the plebs in 194. In that same year, he served on a three-man commission (triumviri coloniae deducendae) with an otherwise unknown Decimus Junius Brutus and the Marcus Helvius who was praetor in 197, for the purpose of establishing a Roman colony at Sipontum in southern Italy.

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