Marcus Annius Verus

Marcus Annius Verus († after 135) was a Roman politician, senator and grandfather of the emperor Mark Aurel . He held the consulate three times .

Verus came from a provincial noble family from Uccubi in Hispania Baetica . Verus' father, Annius Verus, came to Rome at the time of Emperor Nero and was appointed praetur there . In 73/74 he was accepted by the censors Vespasian and Titus among the patricians . With his rise to senator, the cornerstone of the great family fortune was laid.

Verus himself became a suffect consul in 97 . As a friend of the Emperor Hadrian, he held the consulate twice under him (121 and 126) and administered the city of Rome as prefect for several years (from September 117 to 125). After the resignation of the city prefecture, he was given the extraordinary honor of a third consulate in 126. Through his marriage to Rupilia Faustina, the daughter of Trajan's niece Matidia and older half-sister of Hadrian's wife Vibia Sabina , he belonged to the closest circle around the emperor. By marrying his children with promising spouses, he was able to maintain the prominent position of his family for the next generations. He gave his daughter Annia Galeria Faustina to a young nobleman, the later Emperor Antoninus Pius . One of his two sons, who was also called Marcus Annius Verus and who reached the praetur, married Domitia Lucilla , one of the richest heiresses in Italy, who owned a brick factory not far from Rome. From this marriage came the future emperor Mark Aurel. The other son of Verus was Marcus Annius Libo , who was consul in 128.

literature

• Anthony R. Birley : Mark Aurel. 2nd Edition. CH Beck, Munich 1977, especially p. 41 ff.
• Werner Eck : Senators from Vespasian to Hadrian. Prosopographical investigations including the annual and provincial fasts of the governors (= Vestigia . Volume 13). CH Beck, Munich 1970, p. 32 f., ISBN 3-406-03096-3 .
• Paul von Rohden : Annius 93 . In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume I, 2, Stuttgart 1894, Col. 2279.
• Klaus Rosen : Marc Aurel and Lucius Verus. In: Manfred Clauss (Ed.): The Roman Emperors. CH Beck, Munich 2001, p. 145 f.
• Karl Strobel : Emperor Traian. An epoch in world history. Pustet, Regensburg 2010, p. 66.
• Prosopographia Imperii Romani (PIR )² A 695.