Quintus Mucius Scaevola Pontifex

Quintus Mucius Scaevola Pontifex (died 82 BC) was a politician of the Roman Republic and an important early authority on Roman law. He is credited with founding the study of law as a systematic discipline. He was elected Pontifex Maximus (chief priest of Rome), as had been his father and uncle before him. He was the first Roman Pontifex Maximus to be murdered publicly, in Rome in the very Temple of the Vestal Virgins, signifying a breakdown of historical norms and religious taboos in the Republic.

Scaevola was elected tribune in 106 BC, aedile in 104 BC and consul in 95 BC. As consul, together with his relative Lucius Licinius Crassus he had a law (the Lex Licinia Mucia) passed in the Senate that denied Roman citizenship to certain groups within the Roman sphere of influence ("Italians" and "Latins"). The passage of this law was one of the major contributing factors to the Social War.

Scaevola was next made governor of Asia, a position in which he became renowned for his harsh treatment of corrupt tax collectors, and for publishing an edict that later became a standard model for provincial administration. Cicero, for instance, modelled his governor's edict for Cilicia on Scaevola's example. Scaevola's honest administration was so successful that the people he governed instituted a festival day (the dies Mucia) in his honour. This festival was in turn so popular that even Mithridates VI of Pontus left it untouched when he invaded Asia in the First Mithridatic War.

However, by governing Asia so fairly, Scaevola and his legate Publius Rutilius Rufus attracted the enmity of the Equites, who were being denied their usual profits from extorting the locals. These equestrian businessmen later conspired to have Rutilius Rufus prosecuted and exiled for the charge of extortion in 92 BC, a trial that became a byword for injustice in later generations of Romans.

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