Aulus Plautius

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Aulus Plautius († after 57) was a Roman senator and general .

family

Aulus Plautius was the son of a father of the same name who lived in 1 BC. Chr. Suffektkonsul had been. His sister was married to Publius Petronius . His brother may have been Quintus Plautius, who was 36 consul. His great-aunt Urgulania was a friend of the imperial wife Livia Drusilla . Claudius ' wife, Plautia Urgulanilla, was a relative.

Plautius' wife Pomponia Graecina was charged in 57 with "foreign superstition". As a Pater familias , Plautius was able to hear the charges against his wife himself in a local court and acquitted her. Possibly Pomponia was part of Christianity . The Christian background of Pomponia and possibly Plautius also plays a role in the novel Quo Vadis and its film adaptations.

His son Aulus Plautius was murdered by Nero as the alleged lover of Agrippina and thus shared the fate of many other relatives of the Julio-Claudian imperial family .

Career

An inscription indicates his participation in the suppression of a slave revolt in Apulia . However, since this uprising cannot be precisely dated, it could also have been his father.

In 29 Plautius became a suffect consul and from 36 or 39 to 42 governor of the province of Pannonia .

Campaign in Britain

In the early 1940s, some British tribes under Caratacus defeated the Atrebates, who were friends with Rome . For Claudius this was the reason for the conquest of Britain . In 43 Plautius led a force of four legions on behalf of the emperor : the IX Hispana , the II Augusta under the later Emperor Vespasian , the XIV Gemina , and the XX Valeria Victrix as well as numerous auxiliary troops .

Even before the crossing, Plautius needed the help of Claudius' secretary Narcissus to suppress a mutiny among the legionnaires who feared the sea. After the crossing, Plautius landed in Kent . Thanks to Celtic auxiliaries, he succeeded in driving the Britons to flight and thus conquering Britain for the Roman Empire. When he reached the Thames , he stopped and sent for Claudius, who was advancing with reinforcements to conquer Camulodunum . Plautius became the first governor of the newly founded province and returned to Rome in 47, where he received an ovatio .

literature

Remarks

  1. ^ Tacitus : Annals 13, 32.
  2. ^ Suetonius : Nero 35, 4 .
  3. ↑ The inscription of Marcus Aelius Celer is:
    LEGATVS · MISSVS · [A · TI · CAES · August · C] UM * A * PLAVTIO · IN · APVLIA · [AD · SERVOS · TO] RQVENDOS
    The Legatus was of Tiberius Caesar Augustus sent to torture the slaves in Apulia together with Aulus Plautius ( Anthony R. Birley : The 'Fasti' of Roman Britain , p. 38.)
  4. ↑ The most detailed surviving report on the campaign of Plautius is Cassius Dio 60, 19-21.
personal data
SURNAME Plautius, Aulus
BRIEF DESCRIPTION roman consul 29
DATE OF BIRTH 1st century BC BC or 1st century
DATE OF DEATH after 57