Marcus Annius Verus (grandfather of Marcus Aurelius)

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Marcus Annius Verus
Bornc. 50
Died138
NationalityRoman
OfficeConsul (97, 121, 126)
Praefectus urbi
Spouse(s)Rupilia Faustina
Children

Marcus Annius Verus (c. 50 – 138 AD) was the paternal grandfather and adoptive father of the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius, and father-in-law of emperor Antoninus Pius.

Biography[]

Verus was the son of an elder Marcus Annius Verus, who gained the rank of senator and praetor. His family originated from Uccibi (modern Espejo) near Corduba (modern Córdoba) in the Roman province of Hispania Baetica. The family came to prominence and became wealthy through olive oil production in Spain.[1] He was close friends with the emperor Hadrian.

He was urban prefect of Rome and was enrolled as a patrician when Vespasian and Titus were censors. Verus was three times consul, the first time as a suffect in 97,[2] then as ordinary consul in both 121 and 126. This is apparently the cause for a "very strange inscription, found on a large marble tablet excavated in the sixteenth century at St. Peter's in Rome" which alludes to this achievement while celebrating his skill "playing with a glass ball". Edward Champlin notes it was likely the creation of a friendly rival, Lucius Julius Ursus Servianus, who also held the consulate three times the last after Verus.[3]

One explanation is that the whole thing is a joke, based on the connection between Verus' known passion for playing ball and the notion of the ball game as political juggling: an elegant, self-deprecating and rather bitter joke, one not wholly complimentary to Verus. The aged L. Iulius Servianus wrote the piece himself, had it engraved on a marble slab - perhaps accompanying it with the statue of a toga-clad bear playing ball? - and had it delivered to M. Annius Verus on the Kalends of January, 126. When next they met, the two old men affected to laugh heartily at the joke. Fantasy perhaps, but this is a very strange inscription.

He died in 138, nearly aged ninety. Marcus Aurelius says in his "Meditations": "From my grandfather Verus, [I learned] a kindly disposition and sweetness of temper".[4] In his elder years, he had a mistress, of whom he expresses gratitude that "I wasn’t raised by my grandfather's mistress for longer than I was".[5]

Family[]

Verus married Rupilia Faustina (fl. 90 AD), a daughter of the consul Libo Rupilius Frugi. Her mother might have been Salonia Matidia, making Rupilia a maternal grandniece of Trajan. Verus had at least three children by her:[6]

Ronald Syme suggests, based on onomastic evidence, that they had a fourth child, a daughter Annia, who married Gaius Ummidius Quadratus Sertorius Severus.[7]

After Verus the son died in 124, the elder Verus adopted, and, together with his daughter-in-law Domitia, raised their children.[8]

Nerva–Antonine family tree[]

References[]

  1. ^ Anthony Birley, Marcus Aurelius, a Biography (London: Routledge, 1987), p. 28
  2. ^ Fausto Zevi "I consoli del 97 d. Cr. in due framenti gia' editi dei Fasti Ostienses", Listy filologické / Folia philologica, 96 (1973), pp. 125-137
  3. ^ Champlin, "The Glass Ball Game", Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik, 60 (1985), pp. 159-163
  4. ^ Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, i.1
  5. ^ Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, i.17
  6. ^ Birley, Marcus Aurelius, pp. 28f
  7. ^ Syme, "Ummidius Quadratus, Capax Imperii", Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, 83 (1979), p. 308
  8. ^ Birley, Marcus Aurelius, p. 31
Political offices
Preceded by
Gnaeus Arrius Antoninus II
Gaius Calpurnius Piso
as Suffect consuls 		Roman consul
97 (suffect)
with Lucius Neratius Priscus 		Succeeded byas Suffect consuls
Preceded by

as Suffect consuls 		Roman consul II
121
with 		Succeeded by
Marcus Herennius Faustus
Quintus Pomponius Marcellus
as Suffect consuls
Preceded by

as Suffect consuls 		Roman consul III
126
with Gaius Eggius Ambibulus 		Succeeded by

External links[]

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