Quintus Pleminius was a propraetor (legatus pro praetore) in 205 BC. He was given command over Locri in Bruttium by Scipio Africanus after its recapture, considered the "outstanding event" in Sicilian operations that year. His governorship, if it should be called that, ended in sacrilege and murder.
Military command
Pleminius was in charge of the Roman garrison at Rhegium, the geographical location of which on the "toe" of the Italian peninsula had made it a de facto part of the province of Sicily. From Rhegium he brought a force of 3,000 to take possession of Locri, and succeeded in storming one of Locri's two citadels by the aid of exceptionally tall ladders. This action led to a skirmish with Carthaginian troops, who occupied the other citadel. Hostilities escalated when Hannibal arrived on the scene, but Locrian insiders enabled Pleminius's men to hold out until Scipio could bring troops from Messana, at which time the Carthaginians withdrew. Scipio's intervention technically exceeded the mandate of his command and crossed into the provincia of his consular colleague Crassus.
Scipio immediately rounded up the Locrians who had attempted to secede and executed them. Those who had remained loyal and aided Rome received their reward in the form of their fellow citizens' property. Scipio then sent a delegation to Rome placing the matter of Locri's political status in the hands of the Roman senate, and returned with his troops to Messana. Bruttium had been Hannibal's last stronghold in Italy, and Rome's position there was still tentative; from a diplomatic perspective, it was important to show that Rome was the preferable overlord.
Violence and disorder
In Scipio's absence, the soldiers under Pleminius lapsed into looting, which the officers attempted to restrain. Discipline dissolved utterly, and the Roman forces divided into warring troops. The men attached to Pleminius got the worst of it, and reported to him with a display of wounds and complaints of ill treatment.
Pleminius's reaction to this breakdown of discipline was to have the tribunes arrested, stripped, and flogged. Their men then attacked Pleminius, mutilating his ears and nose. Learning of these disturbances, Scipio returned — and reinstated Pleminius. He ordered the offending tribunes sent to Rome to stand trial. "This judgment," notes H.H. Scullard, "is unexpected," and various explanations have been proffered. Scullard concludes that Scipio was "guilty of folly and of lack of humanity."
As soon as Scipio left for Sicily, Pleminius had the tribunes seized and tortured them to death, offering a "novel" justification: "No one knew how to name the penalty for a crime except someone who had learnt its savagery by suffering." They were left unburied.
With a rage that seemed unquenchable, Pleminius turned his violence toward Locrians he suspected of informing Scipio. Meanwhile, the Locrian envoys who had traveled to Rome for the senate hearing related in detail how the excesses of the Roman soldiers surpassed those of the Carthaginians. They complained of widespread rapes committed against women and boys dragged from their homes, and the sacrilegious looting of the Temple of Proserpina, the chief deity of Locri. These reports provided fodder for Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus, nearing the end of his life, in his opposition to Scipio and his "Greek" way of life in Sicily and his plans to invade Africa. The Locrians, however, diverted any blame to Pleminius.