Gabinian

English

Etymology

From Gabinius +‎ -ian. (This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

Adjective

Gabinian (not comparable)

1. (Ancient Rome) Of or pertaining to the gens Gabinia, a plebeian family of Ancient Rome.
   1. Of or pertaining to Aulus Gabinius, tribune of the plebs in 139 BCE, who introduced a law in 139 BCE that permitted voting by ballot.
      • 1824, An Englishman [Isaac Candler], “The Government” (chapter XXVI), in A Summary View of America: Comprising a Description of the Face of the Country, and of Several of the Principal Cities […], London: Printed for T. Cadell […] and W. Blackwood […], pages 388–389:

        Cicero appears to have been of this opinion, as we find him in his dialogue on friendship, objecting to the Gabinian law, by which ballot was enacted in lieu of oral voting, on the ground that the populace would gain the ascendancy in elections; a degree of freedom to which he was averse.

   2. Of or pertaining to Aulus Gabinius, consul in 58 BCE, who introduced a law in 67 BCE that granted Pompey an extraordinary command in the war against the pirates.
      • 1971, A. H. M. Jones, “Syria” (chapter X), in The Cities of the Eastern Roman Provinces, 2nd edition, Oxford: Clarendon Press, page 258:

        Josephus says nothing of Samareitis, but the Samaritans had a council in the first century A.D., which was probably a survival of a Gabinian council: it probably sat at Shechem.