Marcus Junius Silanus Torquatus (Consul 19)

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Marcus Iunius Silanus Torquatus (* around 24 BC; † after 39 AD) was a Roman politician and belonged to the respected family of the Iunii Silani.

family

Silanus was the son of a Marcus Iunius Silanus (of whom only the name itself is known) and grandson of the consul of the same name from the year 25 BC. His mother was possibly the noblewoman Domitia Calvina , known from three Roman inscriptions , from which the cognomen of his daughter Junia Calvina may be derived.

From 13 AD, Silanus was married to Aemilia Lepida , daughter of Iulia minor , a granddaughter of Augustus . All of her children and grandchildren fell victim to the power struggles in the Julio-Claudian imperial house Agrippina the Younger and Nero :

career

The first offices of his political career ( cursus honorum ) are not known. In 19, Silanus was consul all year round, initially together with Lucius Norbanus Balbus and from July 1st with Publius Petronius . The laws enacted at this time ( lex Iunia Norbana and lex Iunia Petronia ) both dealt with the release of slaves , whose lot was to be improved, among other things, by a limited Latin citizenship.

In the 1930s, Silanus was proconsul of the province of Africa . Tacitus reports in his historical work that Emperor Caligula (who ruled from 37 to 41 ) withdrew from him the supreme command of the African Legion ( Legio III Augusta ) and placed it under a legate . However , an honorary inscription was found in Tibur, today's Tivoli , which is dedicated to a Gaius Maenius Bassus and mentions that he held the office of praefectus fabrum for the sixth time under the governor Marcus Silanus in Africa (“praefecto fabrum M. Silani M . f. sexto "). This text was partly interpreted in such a way that Bassus served Silanus a total of six times - so he would have been in office in Africa for at least six years. However, since various other governors of the province can be firmly dated in the 1930s ( Gaius Rubellius Blandus 35/36; Lucius Calpurnius Piso 39), a six-year term of office of Silanus could only be accommodated in the years 29 to 35. Since the emperor Tiberius was still ruling at that time, the above-mentioned Tacitus report would have to contain an error. In fact, Cassius Dio reports the same as Tacitus, only for the governor Lucius Calpurnius Piso. Bengt Thomasson has therefore suggested that the word sexto in the inscription should not be understood as a number adverb ("six times"), but as an ordinal number ("for the sixth time"). So Blandus had been praefectus fabrum six times , but only the last time under Silanus, who then held a perfectly normal governorship of one year.

Tacitus ' report that the senator Lucius Iulius Graecinus , the father of Gnaeus Iulius Agricola , refused to accuse Silanus in 38 and was therefore executed by Caligula, presumably refers to Marcus Iunius Silanus , the emperor's father-in-law.

The date of death of Silanus is unknown, presumably he died under Caligula, i.e. before 41.

literature

  • Prosopographia Imperii Romani (PIR²) (1966) I 839
  • Rudolf Hanslik : Iunius 17. In: The Little Pauly (KlP). Volume 2, Stuttgart 1967, column 1560.
  • Ursula Vogel-Weidemann : The governors of Africa and Asia in the years 14–68 AD. An investigation into the relationship between Princeps and Senate (= Antiquitas . Series 1, Volume 31). Habelt, Bonn 1982, ISBN 3-7749-1412-5 , pp. 97-109.
  • Bengt E. Thomasson : Fasti Africani. Senatorial and knightly officials in the Roman provinces of North Africa from Augustus to Diocletian (= Skrifter utgivna av Svenska Institutet i Rom. Series in 4 °, Volume LIII). Paul Åström, Stockholm 1996, pp. 32-34.

Remarks

  1. ↑ Thesis by Theodor Mommsen in the article: Observationes epigraphicae II: De Iuniis Silanis. In: Ephemeris epigraphica. Volume 1, 1872, pp. 57-67, here p. 64 ( online ). Reprinted in: Theodor Mommsen: Gesammelte Schriften. Volume 8: Epigraphic and Numismatic Writings. Part 1, Weidmannsche Buchhandlung, Berlin 1913, pp. 191–205, here p. 200. See also Edmund Groag : Domitius 94. In: Paulys Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswwissenschaft (RE). Volume V, 2, Stuttgart 1905, Col. 1510 f.
  2. ↑ According to the Prosopographia Imperii Romani (PIR²) (1966) I 861 u. Stemma p. 351.
  3. ↑ According to R. Hanslik, Iunius 27. I. Silana , in: Der Kleine Pauly , Vol. 2 (1967), Col. 1561.
  4. ↑ Tacitus, Histories 4.48.
  5. ↑ Ursula Vogel-Weidemann: The governors of Africa and Asia in the years 14–68 AD. An investigation into the relationship between Princeps and Senate. Habelt, Bonn 1982, ISBN 3-7749-1412-5 , pp. 98-106.
  6. ↑ With a similar, but slightly different approach Ronald Syme : The Early Tiberian Consuls. In: Historia . Volume 30, 1981, pp. 189-202, here p. 196 f. He assumes a governorship of 30 to 35 and considers the six years of which the inscription of Bassus speaks to be calendar years.
  7. ^ Cassius Dio, Roman History 59,20,7. Bengt E. Thomasson on this: Fasti Africani. Senatorial and knightly officials in the Roman provinces of North Africa from Augustus to Diocletian. Paul Åström, Stockholm 1996, p. 32.
  8. ↑ Bengt E. Thomasson: Fasti Africani. Senatorial and knightly officials in the Roman provinces of North Africa from Augustus to Diocletian. Paul Åström, Stockholm 1996, pp. 32-34.
  9. ↑ Tacitus, Agricola 4.1.
personal data
SURNAME Junius Silanus Torquatus, Marcus
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Silanus Torquatus, Marcus Junius; Torquatus, Marcus Iunius Silanus
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Roman politician, consul 19 AD
DATE OF BIRTH around 24 BC Chr.
DATE OF DEATH after 39