Lucius Neratius Proculus

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Lucius Neratius Proculus was a Roman senator of the 2nd century AD

His career ( cursus honorum ) is known from an inscription found in Saepinum in Samnium, home of the Neratii family . Thereafter, Neratius Proculus Decemvir stlibibus iudicandis , military tribune of the legions VII Gemina and VIII Augusta , quaestor , plebeian aedile , praetor and legate of the Legio XVI Flavia company . Subsequently, on the orders of Emperor Antoninus Pius , he led detached units ( vexillationes ) to Syria for a Parthian war , was prefect of the Aerarium militare and finally consul (as suffect consul ).

Because Antoninus Pius is not referred to as divus in the inscription , it was previously assumed that the inscription was erected during the lifetime of this emperor ( one was raised to divus only posthumously) and that the consulate of Neratius Priscus was therefore no later than 161 could; most scholars suspected the years 144 or 145. Since the troop transfer to the Parthian front mentioned in the inscription must have taken place beforehand, it was assumed that tensions between Rome and the neighboring great power had developed around 140 without a war having broken out.

A newly found military diploma shows, however, that Neratius Proculus was most likely only a suffect consul during the joint rule of Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus between 161 and 169 . His mission on the occasion of a war against the Parthians does not, as previously assumed, prove otherwise unknown Parthian-Roman tensions during the early years of Antoninus Pius's reign, but belongs to the end of the reign of this emperor, when the Roman-Parthian war broke out under Marcus Aurelius it was already apparent: Proculus was likely to have led reinforcements to the eastern border around 159/160; This means that the opinion often held by older researchers that the war broke out as a complete surprise to the Romans after the death of Antoninus in 161 can be considered refuted.

literature

  • Peter Weiß : Military diplomas and imperial history. The consulate of L. Neratius Proculus and the prehistory of the Parthian War under Marc Aurel and Lucius Verus . In: Rule and Administration. The everyday life of the Roman administration in the High Imperial Era . Böhlau, Cologne 2007, ISBN 978-3-412-23806-3 , pp. 160-172 .

Remarks

  1. ↑ CIL 9, 2457 .
  2. ^ About Werner Eck : Neratius [6]. In: The New Pauly (DNP). Volume 8, Metzler, Stuttgart 2000, ISBN 3-476-01478-9 .
  3. ^ White: Military diplomas and Reichsgeschichte , pp. 162–167.
personal data
SURNAME Neratius Proculus, Lucius
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Proculus, Lucius Neratius
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Roman consul
DATE OF BIRTH 2nd century
DATE OF DEATH 2nd century or 3rd century