to every Italian ally domiciled in Italy at the time when the law was enacted, provided he made application personally within sixty days to the praetor at Rome. The object of the law was to conciliate the states at war with Rome and to secure the loyalty of the federate states. During the interlude between the civil wars of 87 and 82 BC, Arvina made some rare appearances in the courts as an advocate; Cicero describes him as one of the few orators of note still active at the time. He cooperated carefully with the government at the time, which was dominated by Cornelius Cinna and Arvina's cousin, Gnaeus Carbo, and held the office of praetor in one of those years. In 82 BC, during the government's civil war against the renegade general Sulla, the faction in power became suspicious of Arvina's loyalty, notwithstanding his relation to the consul Gnaeus Carbo, and arranged for him and other unreliable senators to be murdered during a senate meeting in the Curia Hostilia. According to Appian, he was slain while still seated. His head was torn off, affixed to a cross, and set up on public display, whereas his corpse was thrown into the Tiber river. Cicero, who heard the tribunes of 90 BC speak in the popular assemblies, identified Arvina as a second class orator, and described his style of rhetoric as follows: "his language was tolerably nervous, he spoke with ease, and there was an air of authority in his address that was perfectly natural". Cicero also considered him the only member of the Papirius Carbo family who was a good citizen. Arvina may be the father of Gaius Papirius Carbo, a senator condemned for extortion while as governor of Bithynia. Citations References 120s BC births 82 BC deaths 1st-century BC Romans Assassinated Roman politicians Carbo, Gaius, Arvina Roman Republican praetors Tribunes of the plebs Year of birth unknown