Caius Bruttius Praesens
Encyclopedia
Caius or Gaius Bruttius Praesens Lucius Fulvius Rusticus (68–140) was an important Roman senator of the reigns of Roman emperors Trajan
, Hadrian
and Antoninus Pius
. A friend of Pliny the Younger
and Hadrian, he was twice consul
, governed provinces, commanded armies and ended his career as City Prefect of Rome
. Bruttius’ life and career left few coherent traces in the literary record, but a number of inscriptions, including his complete cursus honorum
, fills out the picture considerably.
Pliny, writing to Praesens (Ep. VII.3) refers to him as a Lucanian and an inscription concerning his son
has been found at Volceii in Lucania
. His father was presumably Lucius Bruttius Maximus, who was Proconsul
of Cyprus
in 80 and his mother was a member of the Fulvii Rustici (see gens
Fulvius
), a senatorial family from Cisalpine Gaul
. Praesens was born about 68 as can be inferred by the fact that in 88/89 he was a military tribune in Legio I Minervia
, when he led a vexillatio
n from Germania Inferior
to Pannonia
and earned decorations for service on the Danube
in Roman emperor Domitian
’s campaigns. Despite this early success his career was retarded thereafter. He served as quaestor in Hispania Baetica
(in 92/93 has been suggested), and it may have been at this time that he first became friends with the young Hadrian, but thereafter he retired from public life, perhaps finding it too dangerous in Domitian's murderous last years. Pliny in 107 was urging Praesens not to remain thus on his estates in Campania
and Lucania but to return to Rome and the conduct of affairs. His language suggests Praesens was an Epicurean
in his tastes and beliefs, something he shared with Hadrian. At this point Praesens was married to a woman from Campania
, his first wife, whose name is unknown. She most probably died. Some years later Praesens married as his second wife a rich Roman heiress called Laberia Hostilia Crispina
, a daughter of Manius Laberius Maximus
, twice consul and a Roman general whom Trajan banished to a penal island. Laberia bore Praesens a son, Lucius Fulvius Gaius Bruttius Praesens
Laberius Maximus 'Polyonymus', who became consul in 153 and 180. Through his son, Praesens became the paternal grandfather to future Roman empress Bruttia Crispina
, who married the emperor Commodus
, and to the consul Lucius Bruttius Quintius Crispinus
.
It seems that Praesens heeded Pliny's advice to take an active part in affairs again. He is next heard of in the winter of 114/115, during Trajan’s Parthian war, commanding Legio VI Ferrata
, which according to a fragment of the Parthica of Arrian he marched in deep snow (having secured snowshoes from native guides) across the Armenian Taurus to get to Tigranakert
. After a spell as curator of the Via Latina
, he was legate of Cilicia
when Trajan died in that province in 117. The date of his first consulship is not known for certain, but it is widely assumed that Hadrian made him a suffect consul in late 118 or early 119. He was a novus homo
, the first of his family to hold the consulship. Subsequently Bruttius was Curator operum Publicorum, then governed Cappadocia
and Moesia
Inferior probably from 121 to 127 or 128. He was Proconsul
of Africa
in 134/135 and appears to have been governor of Syria
in 136 or 137, anomalous for a senior former Proconsul, but perhaps empowered to exercise diplomacy with the Parthia
ns. In a resplendent end to a long career, his second consulship came in 139, as colleague of the new emperor Antoninus Pius, and at the same time he became Praefectus urbi, in succession to Scipio Salvidienus Orfitus. However Praesens died in this office the following year, as revealed by a fragment of the Fasti Ostienses published in 1982. Eusebius of Caesarea
and John Malalas
both cite a writer called 'Bruttius' or 'Boutios' as a source for events in the reign of Domitian
, so it has been speculated that Praesens may have written a history or an autobiography. (The anecdote in Arrian, a close contemporary, could have been from personal knowledge.)
Trajan
Trajan , was Roman Emperor from 98 to 117 AD. Born into a non-patrician family in the province of Hispania Baetica, in Spain Trajan rose to prominence during the reign of emperor Domitian. Serving as a legatus legionis in Hispania Tarraconensis, in Spain, in 89 Trajan supported the emperor against...
, Hadrian
Hadrian
Hadrian , was Roman Emperor from 117 to 138. He is best known for building Hadrian's Wall, which marked the northern limit of Roman Britain. In Rome, he re-built the Pantheon and constructed the Temple of Venus and Roma. In addition to being emperor, Hadrian was a humanist and was philhellene in...
and Antoninus Pius
Antoninus Pius
Antoninus Pius , also known as Antoninus, was Roman Emperor from 138 to 161. He was a member of the Nerva-Antonine dynasty and the Aurelii. He did not possess the sobriquet "Pius" until after his accession to the throne...
. A friend of Pliny the Younger
Pliny the Younger
Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus, born Gaius Caecilius or Gaius Caecilius Cilo , better known as Pliny the Younger, was a lawyer, author, and magistrate of Ancient Rome. Pliny's uncle, Pliny the Elder, helped raise and educate him...
and Hadrian, he was twice consul
Consul
Consul was the highest elected office of the Roman Republic and an appointive office under the Empire. The title was also used in other city states and also revived in modern states, notably in the First French Republic...
, governed provinces, commanded armies and ended his career as City Prefect of Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
. Bruttius’ life and career left few coherent traces in the literary record, but a number of inscriptions, including his complete cursus honorum
Cursus honorum
The cursus honorum was the sequential order of public offices held by aspiring politicians in both the Roman Republic and the early Empire. It was designed for men of senatorial rank. The cursus honorum comprised a mixture of military and political administration posts. Each office had a minimum...
, fills out the picture considerably.
Pliny, writing to Praesens (Ep. VII.3) refers to him as a Lucanian and an inscription concerning his son
Gaius Bruttius Praesens
Lucius Fulvius Gaius Bruttius Praesens Laberius Maximus Polyonymus was a prominent Roman senator and twice consul during the reigns of Roman emperors Antoninus Pius, Marcus Aurelius and Commodus. His career is largely known from inscriptions...
has been found at Volceii in Lucania
Lucania
Lucania was an ancient district of southern Italy, extending from the Tyrrhenian Sea to the Gulf of Taranto. To the north it adjoined Campania, Samnium and Apulia, and to the south it was separated by a narrow isthmus from the district of Bruttium...
. His father was presumably Lucius Bruttius Maximus, who was Proconsul
Proconsul
A proconsul was a governor of a province in the Roman Republic appointed for one year by the senate. In modern usage, the title has been used for a person from one country ruling another country or bluntly interfering in another country's internal affairs.-Ancient Rome:In the Roman Republic, a...
of Cyprus
Cyprus
Cyprus , officially the Republic of Cyprus , is a Eurasian island country, member of the European Union, in the Eastern Mediterranean, east of Greece, south of Turkey, west of Syria and north of Egypt. It is the third largest island in the Mediterranean Sea.The earliest known human activity on the...
in 80 and his mother was a member of the Fulvii Rustici (see gens
Gens
In ancient Rome, a gens , plural gentes, referred to a family, consisting of all those individuals who shared the same nomen and claimed descent from a common ancestor. A branch of a gens was called a stirps . The gens was an important social structure at Rome and throughout Italy during the...
Fulvius
Fulvius
Fulvius was the nomen of the gens Fulvia, a patrician gens of ancient Rome that originally came from Tusculum. They were originally a plebeian family but were upgraded to patricians soon after the Roman Republic was formed...
), a senatorial family from Cisalpine Gaul
Cisalpine Gaul
Cisalpine Gaul, in Latin: Gallia Cisalpina or Citerior, also called Gallia Togata, was a Roman province until 41 BC when it was merged into Roman Italy.It bore the name Gallia, because the great body of its inhabitants, after the expulsion of the Etruscans, consisted of Gauls or Celts...
. Praesens was born about 68 as can be inferred by the fact that in 88/89 he was a military tribune in Legio I Minervia
Legio I Minervia
Legio I Minervia was a Roman legion levied by emperor Domitian in 82, for the campaign against the Germanic tribe of the Chatti. Its cognomen is related to the goddess Minerva, the legion's protector. There are still records of the I Minervia in the Rhine border in the middle of the 4th century...
, when he led a vexillatio
Vexillatio
A vexillatio was a detachment of a Roman legion formed as a temporary task force created by the Roman Army of the Principate. It was named from the standards carried by legionary detachments, vexillum , which bore the emblem and name of the parent legion...
n from Germania Inferior
Germania Inferior
Germania Inferior was a Roman province located on the left bank of the Rhine, in today's Luxembourg, southern Netherlands, parts of Belgium, and North Rhine-Westphalia left of the Rhine....
to Pannonia
Pannonia
Pannonia was an ancient province of the Roman Empire bounded north and east by the Danube, coterminous westward with Noricum and upper Italy, and southward with Dalmatia and upper Moesia....
and earned decorations for service on the Danube
Danube
The Danube is a river in the Central Europe and the Europe's second longest river after the Volga. It is classified as an international waterway....
in Roman emperor Domitian
Domitian
Domitian was Roman Emperor from 81 to 96. Domitian was the third and last emperor of the Flavian dynasty.Domitian's youth and early career were largely spent in the shadow of his brother Titus, who gained military renown during the First Jewish-Roman War...
’s campaigns. Despite this early success his career was retarded thereafter. He served as quaestor in Hispania Baetica
Hispania Baetica
Hispania Baetica was one of three Imperial Roman provinces in Hispania, . Hispania Baetica was bordered to the west by Lusitania, and to the northeast by Hispania Tarraconensis. Baetica was part of Al-Andalus under the Moors in the 8th century and approximately corresponds to modern Andalucia...
(in 92/93 has been suggested), and it may have been at this time that he first became friends with the young Hadrian, but thereafter he retired from public life, perhaps finding it too dangerous in Domitian's murderous last years. Pliny in 107 was urging Praesens not to remain thus on his estates in Campania
Campania
Campania is a region in southern Italy. The region has a population of around 5.8 million people, making it the second-most-populous region of Italy; its total area of 13,590 km² makes it the most densely populated region in the country...
and Lucania but to return to Rome and the conduct of affairs. His language suggests Praesens was an Epicurean
Epicureanism
Epicureanism is a system of philosophy based upon the teachings of Epicurus, founded around 307 BC. Epicurus was an atomic materialist, following in the steps of Democritus. His materialism led him to a general attack on superstition and divine intervention. Following Aristippus—about whom...
in his tastes and beliefs, something he shared with Hadrian. At this point Praesens was married to a woman from Campania
Campania
Campania is a region in southern Italy. The region has a population of around 5.8 million people, making it the second-most-populous region of Italy; its total area of 13,590 km² makes it the most densely populated region in the country...
, his first wife, whose name is unknown. She most probably died. Some years later Praesens married as his second wife a rich Roman heiress called Laberia Hostilia Crispina
Laberia Hostilia Crispina
Laberia Hostilia Crispina or her full name Laberia Marcia Hostilia Crispina Moecia Cornelia was a noble Roman woman and heiress that lived between the second half of the 1st century and the first half of the 2nd century in the Roman Empire....
, a daughter of Manius Laberius Maximus
Manius Laberius Maximus
Manius Laberius Maximus was a Roman who lived in the 1st and 2nd centuries. Maximus was a significant Roman Senator and military figure in the reigns of Roman Emperors Domitian and Trajan....
, twice consul and a Roman general whom Trajan banished to a penal island. Laberia bore Praesens a son, Lucius Fulvius Gaius Bruttius Praesens
Gaius Bruttius Praesens
Lucius Fulvius Gaius Bruttius Praesens Laberius Maximus Polyonymus was a prominent Roman senator and twice consul during the reigns of Roman emperors Antoninus Pius, Marcus Aurelius and Commodus. His career is largely known from inscriptions...
Laberius Maximus 'Polyonymus', who became consul in 153 and 180. Through his son, Praesens became the paternal grandfather to future Roman empress Bruttia Crispina
Bruttia Crispina
Bruttia Crispina was the Empress of Rome and wife of Roman Emperor Commodus.Crispina’s mother is unknown and her father was twice consul Gaius Bruttius Praesens. Crispina’s paternal grandparents were consul and senator Caius Bruttius Praesens and rich heiress Laberia Hostilia Crispina, who was the...
, who married the emperor Commodus
Commodus
Commodus , was Roman Emperor from 180 to 192. He also ruled as co-emperor with his father Marcus Aurelius from 177 until his father's death in 180. His name changed throughout his reign; see changes of name for earlier and later forms. His accession as emperor was the first time a son had succeeded...
, and to the consul Lucius Bruttius Quintius Crispinus
Lucius Bruttius Quintius Crispinus
Lucius Bruttius Quintius Crispinus was a Roman who lived in the 2nd century. His mother is unknown and his father was Roman consul Gaius Bruttius Praesens. Crispinus' paternal grandparents were consul and senator Caius Bruttius Praesens and rich heiress Laberia Hostilia Crispina, who was the...
.
It seems that Praesens heeded Pliny's advice to take an active part in affairs again. He is next heard of in the winter of 114/115, during Trajan’s Parthian war, commanding Legio VI Ferrata
Legio VI Ferrata
Legio sexta Ferrata , was a Roman Legion formed in 65 BC, and in existence up to at least 3rd century. A Legio VI fought in the Roman Republican civil wars of the 40s and 30s BC...
, which according to a fragment of the Parthica of Arrian he marched in deep snow (having secured snowshoes from native guides) across the Armenian Taurus to get to Tigranakert
Tigranakert
Tigranakert was a city possibly located near present-day Silvan, Turkey, east of Diyarbakır. It was founded by the Armenian Emperor Tigranes the Great in the 1st century BC. Tigranakert was founded as the new capital of the Armenian Empire in order to be in a more central position within the...
. After a spell as curator of the Via Latina
Via Latina
The Via Latina was a Roman road of Italy, running southeast from Rome for about 200 kilometers.It led from the Porta Latina in the Aurelian walls of Rome to the pass of Mons Algidus; it was important in the early military history of Rome...
, he was legate of Cilicia
Cilicia
In antiquity, Cilicia was the south coastal region of Asia Minor, south of the central Anatolian plateau. It existed as a political entity from Hittite times into the Byzantine empire...
when Trajan died in that province in 117. The date of his first consulship is not known for certain, but it is widely assumed that Hadrian made him a suffect consul in late 118 or early 119. He was a novus homo
Novus homo
Homo novus was the term in ancient Rome for a man who was the first in his family to serve in the Roman Senate or, more specifically, to be elected as consul...
, the first of his family to hold the consulship. Subsequently Bruttius was Curator operum Publicorum, then governed Cappadocia
Cappadocia
Cappadocia is a historical region in Central Anatolia, largely in Nevşehir Province.In the time of Herodotus, the Cappadocians were reported as occupying the whole region from Mount Taurus to the vicinity of the Euxine...
and Moesia
Moesia
Moesia was an ancient region and later Roman province situated in the Balkans, along the south bank of the Danube River. It included territories of modern-day Southern Serbia , Northern Republic of Macedonia, Northern Bulgaria, Romanian Dobrudja, Southern Moldova, and Budjak .-History:In ancient...
Inferior probably from 121 to 127 or 128. He was Proconsul
Proconsul
A proconsul was a governor of a province in the Roman Republic appointed for one year by the senate. In modern usage, the title has been used for a person from one country ruling another country or bluntly interfering in another country's internal affairs.-Ancient Rome:In the Roman Republic, a...
of Africa
Africa Province
The Roman province of Africa was established after the Romans defeated Carthage in the Third Punic War. It roughly comprised the territory of present-day northern Tunisia, and the small Mediterranean coast of modern-day western Libya along the Syrtis Minor...
in 134/135 and appears to have been governor of Syria
Syria
Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....
in 136 or 137, anomalous for a senior former Proconsul, but perhaps empowered to exercise diplomacy with the Parthia
Parthia
Parthia is a region of north-eastern Iran, best known for having been the political and cultural base of the Arsacid dynasty, rulers of the Parthian Empire....
ns. In a resplendent end to a long career, his second consulship came in 139, as colleague of the new emperor Antoninus Pius, and at the same time he became Praefectus urbi, in succession to Scipio Salvidienus Orfitus. However Praesens died in this office the following year, as revealed by a fragment of the Fasti Ostienses published in 1982. Eusebius of Caesarea
Eusebius of Caesarea
Eusebius of Caesarea also called Eusebius Pamphili, was a Roman historian, exegete and Christian polemicist. He became the Bishop of Caesarea in Palestine about the year 314. Together with Pamphilus, he was a scholar of the Biblical canon...
and John Malalas
John Malalas
John Malalas or Ioannes Malalas was a Greek chronicler from Antioch. Malalas is probably a Syriac word for "rhetor", "orator"; it is first applied to him by John of Damascus .-Life:Malalas was educated in Antioch, and probably was a jurist there, but moved to...
both cite a writer called 'Bruttius' or 'Boutios' as a source for events in the reign of Domitian
Domitian
Domitian was Roman Emperor from 81 to 96. Domitian was the third and last emperor of the Flavian dynasty.Domitian's youth and early career were largely spent in the shadow of his brother Titus, who gained military renown during the First Jewish-Roman War...
, so it has been speculated that Praesens may have written a history or an autobiography. (The anecdote in Arrian, a close contemporary, could have been from personal knowledge.)
Source
- Several articles by Sir Ronald Syme, especially 'Praesens the Friend of Hadrian' (Roman Papers Volume V, Oxford 1988) which includes the complete text of his cursus from Mactar in Africa.