The Gold of Tolosa

A treasure the Roman commander Quintus Servilius Caepio took from Tolosa, now Toulouse. Ancient writers said it brought ruin on everyone who touched it.

Wikipedia describes the Gold of Tolosa, or aurum Tolosanum, as a hoard Caepio seized from Tolosa, a town of the Volcae. Wikipedia and Livy call him proconsul; Aulus Gellius calls him consul.

The ancient accounts disagree on where the gold came from. Strabo writes that it was said to be part of the riches carried off from Delphi, with the townspeople adding their own property to it as an offering to the god. Gellius says Caepio's men found the gold in the town's temples during the sack.

The curse grew from the theft. Gellius cites an old proverb about the gold of Tolosa and says anyone who took a piece of it met a miserable, painful end. Strabo says Caepio's own life ended in misfortune: his homeland cast him out as a robber of temples, and he left only daughters as heirs. Justin writes that the sacrilege later brought disaster on Caepio and his troops, and that the Cimbrian war seemed to follow the Romans as punishment.

Livy's summary records the defeat itself: Gnaeus Manlius and Caepio were beaten and lost both of their camps. It cites the historian Valerius Antias for the dead near Arausio: 80,000 soldiers, plus 40,000 servants and others who followed the army.