Gaius Papirius Carbo Arvina (c. 124 – 82 BC) was a Roman orator and politician. He was an opponent of the reforms championed by the tribuneMarcus Livius Drusus and the oratorLucius Licinius Crassus, and held theplebeian tribunate the year following Drusus's murder. He held senior state positions in the interlude between the civil wars of 87 and 83 BC, when his cousin,Gnaeus Carbo, dominated the government. Nevertheless, during the war in 82 his loyalty was seen as suspect, causing Arvina to be murdered by government agents during a meeting of theSenate.

Gaius Papirius Carbo Arvina belonged to a large generation of Roman orators whose members were all born around 124 BC and flourished during the youth ofCicero.^[1] He came from a family (thePapirii Carbones) which was prominent in Roman politics and theSenate during the late 2nd century and early 1st century BC. His father,Gaius Papirius Carbo,consul in 120 BC, had been an ally of theGracchi brothers, deserting their cause after their deaths, only to commit suicide in 119 BC after being prosecuted by the young and rising oratorLucius Licinius Crassus.

Arvina grew up with bitter resentment for Crassus^[2] and was said to have conceived a lifelong enmity towards him.^[3] In 94 BC, Arvina followed Crassus toGaul, of which the latter had been appointed governor, with the secret intention of gathering evidence with which he might prosecute Crassus for maladministration. Not only did Carbo find nothing incriminating within the governor's impeccable administration,^[2] but Crassus found out about Carbo's intentions and decided, to the surprise of later commentators, to incorporate him into his close circle of advisors. As a result, "the keen and bitter Carbo got nothing from his trip to Gaul, except the realization that his father had been guilty and had been sent into exile by a man of complete integrity".^[4]

In 91 BC, Carbo Arvina was an opponent of the abortive political reforms promoted Crassus and his pupil, the tribuneMarcus Livius Drusus.^[2] The following year he was atribune of the plebs, and was very frequently seen giving speeches in theRostra (denouncing Drusus, who had been murdered the previous year, in one of them).^[5] He is known for the law (Plautia Papiria) carried by him andMarcus Plautius Silvanus while tribunes of the people in 90 (or 89), whereby the Roman franchise was offered to every Italian ally domiciled in Italy at the time when the law was enacted, provided he made application personally within sixty days to thepraetor 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.^[6]

During the interlude between the civil wars of87 and82 BC, Arvina made some rare appearances in the courts as an advocate;^[7] Cicero describes him as one of the few orators of note still active at the time.^[8] He cooperated carefully with the government at the time, which was dominated byCornelius Cinna and Arvina's cousin,Gnaeus Carbo,^[7] and held the office ofpraetor in one of those years.^[9] In 82 BC, during the government'scivil war against the renegade generalSulla, the faction in power became suspicious of Arvina's loyalty, notwithstanding his relation to the consul Gnaeus Carbo,^[10] and arranged for him and other unreliable senators to be murdered during a senate meeting in theCuria Hostilia.^[11] According toAppian, he was slain while still seated.^[12] His head was torn off, affixed to a cross, and set up on public display, whereas his corpse was thrown into theTiber river.^[13]

Cicero, who heard the tribunes of 90 BC speak in the popular assemblies,^[2] 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".^[14] Cicero also considered him the only member of the Papirius Carbo family who was a good citizen.^[15] Arvina may be the father of Gaius Papirius Carbo, a senator condemned for extortion while as governor ofBithynia.^[16]

• Appian,Civil Wars
• Broughton, T. Robert S. (1952).The Magistrates of the Roman Republic Volume II: 99 B.C.–31 B.C.(PDF). New York: American Philological Association.
•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Carbo s.v. Gaius Papirius Carbo, surnamed Arvina".Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 5 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 304.
• ‹See TfM›Cicero,Brutus,de Oratore,Epistulae ad Familiares,Orator
• Malcovati, Enrica, ed. (1976) [1930]. "87. C. Papirius Carbo Arvina".Oratorum Romanorum Fragmenta Liberae Rei Publicae (4th ed.). Turin: Paravia. pp. 303–304.
• ‹See TfM›Münzer, Friedrich, "Papirius 40",Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft, volume XVIII.3, columns 1031–1034 (Stuttgart, 1949).
• Shackleton Bailey, D.R., ed. (1977).Cicero: Epistulae Ad Familiares, Volume II, 47–43 B.C. Cambridge University Press.ISBN 0-521-21152-2.
• Sumner, G.V. (1973).The Orators in Cicero'sBrutus: Prosopography and Chronology. University of Toronto Press.ISBN 0-8020-5281-9.
• Valerius Maximus,Memorable Deeds and Sayings

• 120s BC births
• 82 BC deaths
• 1st-century BC Romans
• Assassinated ancient Roman politicians
• Papirii
• Roman Republican praetors
• Tribunes of the plebs

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• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Articles with hCards
• Articles containing Latin-language text
• Wikipedia articles incorporating a citation from the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica with Wikisource reference
• Wikipedia articles incorporating text from the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica
• Year of birth uncertain