Paullus Fabius Persicus

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Paullus Fabius Persicus (2/1 BCE - some time during the reign of Claudius) was the only son of Paullus Fabius Maximus and Marcia, a maternal cousin of Augustus (daughter of his aunt Atia and L. Marcius Philippus) and great-niece of Julius Caesar. As such, Persicus was a first-cousin-once-removed of Augustus and a great-great-nephew of Julius Caesar.

Contents

Birth and name

Paullus Fabius Persicus is believed to have been born in 2 or 1 BCE. [1] His cognomen - like the praenomen (Paullus) he shared with his father - was given to him to advertise his natural paternal descent from Lucius Aemilius Paullus Macedonicus, who had defeated the last Macedonian monarch, Perseus, in 146 BCE. [1]

Life and career

The first appearance of Persicus is in June of the year 15, when he was co-opted into the Arval Brethren [2] aged c. 15 to replace his then recently deceased father. [1] Around the same time, he was also made a member of the College of Pontiffs and of the Sodales Augustales. He subsequently held the posts of quaestor under Tiberius and praetor, though the details of these posts are unknown. [3] His next dated post is in 34, when he became ordinary consul with Lucius Vitellius, the father of the later Roman Emperor Vitellius, as his colleague. [4]

After his consulship, his next post was proconsul of Asia in the reign of Claudius (c. 44). [5] An edict written by Persicus from his time as proconsul of Asia survives, addressed to the Ephesians concerning issues in the worship of the Goddess Artemis. [3]

He seems to have died sometime in the reign of Claudius. [6]

Character

According to Seneca the Younger, Persicus was a particularly vile person, [7] who owed his career more to his ancestry than to his own merit. [8] Ronald Syme adds, "He was also shunned by the virtuous and exemplary Julus Graecinus, the parent of Julius Agricola, unresponsive to the Narbonensian clientela of the Fabii." [6]

Footnotes

  1. 1 2 3 Ronald Syme, Augustan Aristocracy (1989), p. 416
  2. ↑ AE 1947, 52
  3. 1 2 Braund, D., Augustus to Nero: A Sourcebook on Roman History, 31BC-AD68 (1985), pp. 213-5
  4. ↑ Alison E. Cooley, The Cambridge Manual of Latin Epigraphy (Cambridge: University Press, 2012), p. 460
  5. ↑ Stevenson, G., Power and Place: Temple and Identity in the Book of Revelation (2001), p. 75
  6. 1 2 Syme, Augustan Aristocracy, p. 417
  7. ↑ Seneca, De Beneficiis II.21.5
  8. ↑ Seneca, De Beneficiis IV.30

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References

Political offices
Preceded byas Suffect consuls Consul of the Roman Empire
34
with Lucius Vitellius 		Succeeded byas Suffect consuls
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