Publius Clodius Thrasea Paetus

Publius Clodius Thrasea Paetus (* in Patavium ; † 66 in Rome ) was a Roman senator and Stoic in the reign of Emperor Nero . He was the father-in-law of Helvidius Priscus and a friend of the poet Aulus Persius Flaccus .

He was born in Patavium and belonged to a noble and wealthy family. The circumstances that prompted him to settle in Rome are unknown. At first he was treated with consideration by Nero, perhaps due to the influence of Seneca , and appointed by the Emperor as a suffect consul for the year 56 and charged with looking after the Sibylline books . In 57 he supported the cause of the Cilician envoys in the Senate who came to Rome to charge their governor Cossutianus Capito with extortion.

In 59 Thrasea first publicly displayed his disgust for Nero's behavior and the submissiveness of the Senate when he left the Senate after reading Nero's letters of justification for the murder of Agrippina , but before voting on it. In 62 he prevented the execution of the praetor Antistius Sosianus , who had written a diatribe about the emperor, and convinced the Senate to pass a milder sentence. Nero showed his displeasure by refusing to receive Thrasea when the Senate closed its visit to the emperor on the occasion of the birth of a princess.

As a consequence, Thrasea withdrew into private life and no longer entered the Senate building. His death, however, was already a done deal. His simple life and adherence to stoic principles were viewed as a charge of Nero's frivolity and depravity. The historian Tacitus claims that Nero "finally longed to send virtue in the person of Thrasea and Soranus himself to death." Cossutianus Capito, Tigellinus ' son-in-law , who had not forgiven Thrasea for standing on the opposite side nine years earlier, and Eprius Marcellus took it upon themselves to pursue Thrasea.

Various charges were brought against him and the Senate, intimidated by the presence of a large contingent of troops, saw no alternative but to sentence him to death. The news reached Thrasea at home while entertaining some friends. He retired to his room and cut his wrists. Tacitus' report breaks off at the point where Thrasea speaks to Demetrius , the Cynical philosopher with whom he had a conversation about the nature of the soul earlier that day. Thrasea was the subject of an eulogy from Arulenus Rusticus , a tribune of the people who had offered to veto the decree of the Senate but forbade Thrasea to throw away his life uselessly. Thrasea based his own way of life on the example of Cato Uticensis , on which he wrote praise himself, one of Plutarch's main sources in his biography Catos.

Thrasea was married to Arria the Younger , the daughter of the elder Arria . With his wife Thrasea had a daughter, Fannia , who became the second wife of Gaius Helvidius Priscus .

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The sources are Tacitus , Annalen , Xlii. 49, xiv. 12, 48, xv. 20-22, xvi 21-35, Hist. ii. 91, iv. 5; Cassius Dio lxi. 15, lxii. 26; Juvenal v. 36.

literature

• Richard Goulet: Thrasea Paetus (P. Clodius). In: Richard Goulet (ed.): Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques. Volume 6, CNRS Éditions, Paris 2016, ISBN 978-2-271-08989-2 , pp. 1142–1146
• Werner Eck : P. Clodius Thrasea Paetus. In: The New Pauly (DNP). Volume 3, Metzler, Stuttgart 1997, ISBN 3-476-01473-8 , column 41 f.