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Publius Vatinius was a Roman Republic politician during the last decades of the Republic. He served as a Caesarian-allied plebeian tribune in the year 59 – he was the tribune that proposed the Lex Vatinia giving Caesar his Gallic command – and later fought on that side of the civil war. Caesar made him consul in 47 BC; he later fought in Illyricum for the Caesarians and celebrated a triumph for his victories there in 42 BC.
Cicero sent him that year to Pozzuoli to prevent the gold and silver from being carried away from the city. His extortions, however, were so oppressive that the inhabitants were obliged to complain of his conduct; Pina Polo and Díaz Fernández, in The Quaestorship in the Roman Republic, however, doubt the Ciceronean story, saying "the text implies Vatinius carried out his mission with extraordinary zeal and that his diligence led some merchants to complain".
He served the next year, 62 BC, as a lieutenant under Gaius Cosconius, who was then proconsul in Hispania Ulterior.
Vatinius also passed legislation to regulate challenges against jurymen, to set limits of the size of staffs for provincial governors, to establish a colony at Novum Comum, and to regulate diplomacy with foreign kings. Cicero, in an invective against Vatinius, connected Vatinius with the incident during his tribunate where consul Bibulus was pushed to the floor of the forum and assaulted with a bucket of manure when he tried to intercede against a speech his co-consul Caesar was making.
During his tribunate, Vatinius also brought forward the informer Lucius Vettius. Vettius, "an informer of little repute", told of a supposed group of nobles conspiring to murder Pompey. Vettius also named a number of men – including Bibulus (serving as consul), "the older and younger Curiones, two Lentuli, Aemilius Paullus, and M. Brutus" – as members of the plot. Vettius was then jailed, and when produced the next day by Caesar and Vatinius, changed his story to drop any mention of Brutus while also naming "Lucullus, Domitius Ahenobarbus, C. Fannius, C. Piso, and M. Laterensis, with some sly hints about Cicero"; soon afterwards, Vettius was found dead in prison. While the object of the Vettius affair is not clear, "most commentators" believe that Caesar and Vatinius "suborned Vettius to fabricate the plot in order to ruin young Curio and other aristocrats who were giving the consul Caesar difficulty", though it is also possible that Pompey or his partisans had concocted the scheme. For his part, Vatinius questioned Vettius before the people and promised to bring legislation to establish a special inquiry into the accusations, but this plan was probably dropped after Vettius' death.
Vatinius was likely put up for election to the Augur, but the alliance between Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus was unable to win him election (or election of any other allies that year). By autumn 59 BC, it seems, the alliance of the three men had reached their political apex, with Vatinius "utterly failing to rally their popular audience or mobilising demonstrations against their opponents".
After his tribunate, Vatinius left Rome with Caesar to serve as a legatus in Gaul, serving there for a few years, possibly as early as 58, but definitely from 57 to 56 BC. He also was prosecuted, possibly by Gaius Licinius Macer Calvus, in the first half of 58; the trial was stopped, however, by the intercession of the people's tribune Publius Clodius Pulcher and violent disorder. It seems Vatinius failed to be elected to the aedileship in 57 BC, which was "all the more troubling" when the ex-tribunes who had opposed Caesar in his tribunician cohort were successfully returned as praetors.
Vatinius's animosity towards Cicero continued, and he appeared as a witness against Publius Sestius in 56 BC, whom Cicero was defending. Cicero spoke on behalf of Sestius with a scathing speech against the character of Vatinius called in P. Vatinium testem interrogatio. Among other things, Cicero alleged that Vatinius had defied auspices, occupied temples with armed men, violently attacked the consul, attacked other magistrates when they tried to interpose their vetoes, profaned religious ceremonies, and was responsible for other unscrupulous actions. Some of these claims are "obviously rhetorical": Vatinius "respected the intercession made by some of his fellow tribunes".
After his year as praetor, in August 54 BC, Vatinius was prosecuted for bribery in his campaign for the praetorship by Gaius Licinius Macer Calvus. Calvus had previously accused Vatinius on the same charges earlier in the year. Calvus' speech in this prosecution was noted for its eloquence; Vatinius even interrupted Calvus protesting, "I ask you, judges, is it right that I should be convicted because that man is articulate?". Cicero, who was by this time "obedient to Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus", successfully defended Vatinius against these bribery charges.
Early in 47 BC, Vatinius commanded troops in Illyricum and defeated Marcus Octavius at the Battle of Tauris, recovering the province for the Caesarians. He was also elected that year as augur, succeeding Appius Claudius Pulcher. In return for his successes, Vatinius was rewarded with a three-month ordinary consulship – elections for that year were delayed and held in September – late in 47 BC. After his short consulship, he took up a proconsular command in Illyricum from 45 to 43 BC. He was sent to Illyricum with three legions to reclaim the province and was successful, being acclaimed imperator and receiving supplicatio (days of thanksgiving) for his success.
After the death of Caesar on 15 March 44 BC, Vatinius attempted to remain in Illyricum but was forced, either late in 44 or early in 43 BC, to yield his troops and territory to Marcus Junius Brutus. A letter to this effect arrived in Rome in early or mid February 43 BC.
Vatinius' whereabouts and activities in 43 BC are undocumented, but the next year, he celebrated a triumph on 31 July 42 BC over Illyricum. In later life, he reconciled with Cicero. He probably died some time shortly after his triumph.
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