Manius Acilius Glabrio Gnaeus Cornelius Severus (born c. 119 - after 177) was a senator of the Roman Empire. He was consul ordinarius in 152 with Marcus Valerius Homullus as his colleague. Acilius Glabrio is known almost solely from surviving inscriptions.
Assuming that he was appointed consul ordinarius anno suo, Acilius Glabrio was born in 119. [1] He belonged to the Acilii Glabriones, a family that first gained prominence during Republican times. Although it had been a Plebeian family during the Republic, by Acilius Glabrio's lifetime it had been granted Patrician status.
His father was Manius Acilius Glabrio, consul in 124; and his grandfather was Manius Acilius Glabrio, consul in 91. [2]
Acilius Glabrio's name presents a problem, due to its polyonymous nature. In short, he has multiple names—"Manius Acilius Glabrio" and "Gnaeus Cornelius Severus"—which is baffling to anyone more familiar with the tria nomina of the Late Republic and Early Empire. This polyonomy can be explained one of three ways:
Each of these possible interpretations have their advocates: Monique Dondin-Payre has argued that he was the natural son of Cornelius Severus; [3] on the other hand, Ronald Syme advocates the interpretation his mother was the daughter of the consul, giving her a hypothetical but unattested name Cornelia Severa; [4] although Olli Salomies endorses Syme's choice, he points out that the daughter of the consul of 112 is known to have been named Cornelia Manliola, and that there were two "Acilia Manliola": one he identifies as Acilius Glabrio's daughter, the other as his great-granddaughter. [5]
His career is known through a surviving inscription, CIL XIV, 4237. It records a cursus honorum that Edward Champlin considered unusual for a patrician, [6] and Ronald Syme wrote "presents abnormal features" and elaborates: "The patrician senator never sees an army; he accedes to the fasces at the age of thirty two or soon after; and he may not bother to leave the shores of Italy until the sortition (discretely managed) awards Asia or Africa fourteen or fifteen years later." [7]
His career as a senator began in a predictable fashion, as a triumvir monetalis , about which Syme notes, "No patrician in this epoch held any of the other three minor magistracies." However, his next office was unusual: Acilius Glabrio saw service as a military tribune of Legio XV Apollinaris. After Trajan became emperor, only one other patrician is known to have served as a military tribune, Publius Manilius Vopiscus Vicinillianus, consul of 114. [8] Then he was praetorian legate twice—the first as the adjunct to the governor of Crete and Cyrenaica, the other to the proconsul of Africa—prior to becoming quaestor.
Syme examined the context of his posting. He notes that in 137 (the year Syme concludes Acilius Glabrio served with the Legio XV Apollinaris) the governor of the province that the legion was stationed in was Flavius Arrianus, who dedicated his Tacitica to the current emperor, Hadrian; Syme also notes that 137 was an unsettled year towards the end of Hadrian's reign, when intrigue surrounded his selection of a successor. "A prudent father would do well if he removed his young son beyond ... [its] reach." [9] Syme also notes that while stationed in Cappadocia, Acilius Glabrio granted Roman citizenship to the family of Acilius Diodotus, a sophist from Caesarea (modern Kayseri). [10]
Little can be said about his time in Crete and Cyrenaica: the governor when he was in the province, 138/139, is not known. However, Syme proposes that when Acilius Glabrio was in Africa, 139/140, the proconsul of Africa at the time was his father, Manius Acilius Glabrio. [11] Syme concludes his father's influence was present throughout this part of his life.
After his consulship Acilius Glabrio was proconsul of Africa in his own right between AD 164 and 168. [12] That he was one of the witnesses to the Tabula Banasitana ( AE 1971, 534) shows he was still alive on 6 July 177.
According to a partly preserved gravestone CIL XIV, 2484, his wife's name was Faustina; the inscription memorializes two daughters: Faustina Aciliana (died aged 13 years, 2 months and 11 days) and Priscilla Aciliana (also died young). It is possible they had another daughter, Acilia, who was the mother of Tiberius Claudius Cleobulus. They are known to have had two sons, Manius Acilius Glabrio, twice consul; [13] and Manius Acilius Faustinus, suffect consul in 179. [14]
Champlin suggests that, based on her name, Faustina was a descendant of the wife of Marcus Annius Verus—more specifically, Ummidia Cornificia Faustina, the niece of Emperor Marcus Aurelius. [15] However, Syme raises two objections to this identification. His first is that Ummidia Cornificia was much too young to be married to Acilius Glabrio: her parents were married in 136, and her presumed oldest son was consul for the second time in 186. His second is that, "[i]f Glabrio had married a cousin or a niece of Marcus, it is strange that, surviving his consulate by a quarter of a century, he was able to avoid a second tenure of the fasces." [16]
The gens Acilia was a plebeian family at ancient Rome, that flourished from the middle of the third century BC until at least the fifth century AD, a period of seven hundred years. The first of the gens to achieve prominence was Gaius Acilius, who was quaestor in 203 and tribune of the plebs in 197 BC.
Manius Acilius Glabrio was a Roman statesman and general, grandson of the jurist Publius Mucius Scaevola.
Manius Acilius Glabrio was a plebeian Roman politician and general during the Republican. He served as consul in 191 BC while Rome was at war with the Seleucid Empire. He defeated Emperor Antiochus the Great at Thermopylae, helping establish Roman unipolar control over the Mediterranean, and was awarded a triumph. Credible accusations that he had embezzled spoils from his conquests in Greece while consul caused him to withdraw from his attempt to run for censor, after which he largely retired from public life.
Annia Aurelia Faustina was an Anatolian Roman noblewoman. She was briefly married to the Roman emperor Elagabalus in 221 and thus a Roman empress. She was Elagabalus' third wife.
Manius Acilius Glabrio was a Roman Senator who served as consul ordinarius in AD 91 as the colleague of Trajan, afterwards emperor. Although one of many senators executed during the reign of Domitian on the alleged grounds of plotting against the emperor, he was remembered by his contemporaries best for his strength. Domitian summoned Glabrio during the latter's consulate to his Alban estate during the festival of the Juvenalia to kill a large lion; not only did Glabrio despatch the beast, but he escaped all injury. Following his defeat of the lion, Glabrio was banished by Domitian, then executed while in exile.
Manius Acilius Glabrio may refer to:
Annia Cornificia Faustina was the youngest child and only daughter of the praetor Marcus Annius Verus and Domitia Lucilla. The parents of Cornificia came from wealthy senatorial families who were of consular rank. Her brother was the future Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, and both were born and raised in Rome.
The gens Didia, or Deidia, as the name is spelled on coins, was a plebeian family at ancient Rome, which first appears in history during the final century of the Republic. According to Cicero, they were novi homines. Titus Didius obtained the consulship in 98 BC, a dignity shared by no other Didii until imperial times.
Lucius Valerius Flaccus was a Roman politician and general. He was consul in 195 BC and censor in 183 BC, serving both times with his friend Cato the Elder, whom he brought to the notice of the Roman political elite.
Marcus Ummidius Quadratus Annianus (138–182) was a Roman Senator and the nephew of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius. He was involved in an unsuccessful plot to assassinate his cousin the Emperor Commodus, which led to his execution afterwards.
Annia Faustina was a noblewoman of Anatolian Roman descent and a wealthy heiress who lived in the Roman Empire. She was a mother-in-law of the emperor Elagabalus.
Anicius Acilius Glabrio Faustus was an aristocrat of the later Roman Empire. He was Urban prefect three times before 437, consul in 438, and briefly Praetorian prefect of Italy in 442. Faustus was selected to promulgate the Theodosian Code in the Western Empire.
Marcus Acilius Glabrio was a Roman senator who was appointed consul suffectus in 33 BC.
Galeo Tettienus Severus Marcus Eppuleius Proculus Tiberius Caepio Hispo was a Roman senator active in the late 1st and early 2nd centuries AD, who occupied a number of offices in the imperial service. He was suffect consul around the year 101 as the colleague of Rubrius Gallus.
Tiberius Claudius Cleobulus was a Roman senator.
Aulus Egrilius Plarianus, also known as Aulus Egrilius Plarianus Pater was a Roman senator, who flourished during the reign of Hadrian. He was suffect consul in the nundinium of October to December 128 with Quintus Planius Sardus Varius Ambibulus as his colleague; as the first of his family to accede to the consulate, he is a homo novus. Plarianus is known entirely from inscriptions.
Marcus Valerius Homullus was a Roman Senator of the second century. In 152 he was consul ordinarius with Manius Acilius Glabrio Gnaeus Cornelius Severus. He informed against Marcus Aurelius and Marcus' mother Domitia Lucilla to Antoninus Pius, but nothing came of that according to the Historia Augusta.