Marcus Annius Verus (grandfather of Marcus Aurelius)

Marcus Annius Verus (II) (c. 50 – 138 AD) was the grandfather and adoptive father of the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius, and father-in-law of Emperor Antoninus Pius.

Biography

Verus was the son of an elder Marcus Annius Verus, who gained the rank of senator and praetor. His family originated from Uccibi (modern Espejo) near Corduba (modern Córdoba) in the Roman province of Hispania Baetica. The family came to prominence and became wealthy through olive oil production in Spain.[1] He was close friends with the emperor Hadrian.

He was prefect of Rome and was enrolled as a patrician when Vespasian and Titus were censors. Verus was three times consul, the first time as a suffect in 97,[2] then as ordinary consul in both 121 and 126. This is apparently the cause for a "very strange inscription, found on a large marble tablet excavated in the sixteenth century at St. Peter's in Rome" which alludes to this achievement while celebrating his skill "playing with a glass ball". Edward Champlin notes it was likely the creation of a friendly rival, Lucius Julius Ursus Servianus, who also held the consulate three times the last after Verus.[3]

One explanation is that the whole thing is a joke, based on the connection between Verus' known passion for playing ball and the notion of the ball game as political juggling: an elegant, self-deprecating and rather bitter joke, one not wholly complimentary to Verus. The aged L. Iulius Servianus wrote the piece himself, had it engraved on a marble slab - perhaps accompanying it with the statue of a toga-clad bear playing ball? - and had it delivered to M. Annius Verus on the Kalends of January, 126. When next they met, the two old men affected to laugh heartily at the joke. Fantasy perhaps, but this is a very strange inscription.

He died in 138, nearly aged ninety. Marcus Aurelius says in his "Meditations": "From my grandfather Verus, [I learned] a kindly disposition and sweetness of temper".[4] In his elder years, he had a mistress, of whom he expresses gratitude that "I wasn’t raised by my grandfather's mistress for longer than I was".[5]

Family

Verus married Rupilia Faustina, a daughter of the niece of Trajan, Matidia, and had at least three children:[6]

Ronald Syme suggests, based on onomastic evidence, that they had a fourth child, a daughter Annia, who married Gaius Ummidius Quadratus Sertorius Severus.[7]

After Verus the son died in 124, the elder Verus adopted, and, together with their mother Domitia, raised their two grandchildren.[8]

Nerva–Antonine family tree

References

  1. Anthony Birley, Marcus Aurelius, a Biography (London: Routledge, 1987), p. 28
  2. Fausto Zevi "I consoli del 97 d. Cr. in due framenti gia' editi dei Fasti Ostienses", Listy filologické / Folia philologica, 96 (1973), pp. 125-137
  3. Champlin, "The Glass Ball Game", Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik, 60 (1985), pp. 159-163
  4. Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, i.1
  5. Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, i.17
  6. Birley, Marcus Aurelius, pp. 28f
  7. Syme, "Ummidius Quadratus, Capax Imperii", Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, 83 (1979), p. 308
  8. Birley, Marcus Aurelius, p. 31

Further reading

Political offices
Preceded by
Gnaeus Arrius Antoninus II,
and Gaius Calpurnius Piso

as Suffect consuls
Suffect consul of the Roman Empire
97
with Lucius Neratius Priscus
Succeeded by
Lucius Domitius Apollinaris,
and Sextus Hermentidius Campanus

as Suffect consuls
Preceded by
Gaius Carminius Gallus,
and Gaius Atilius Serranus

as Suffect consuls
Consul of the Roman Empire
121
with Gnaeus Arrius Augur
Succeeded by
Marcus Herennius Faustus,
and Quintus Pomponius Marcellus

as Suffect consuls
Preceded by
Quintus Vetina Verus,
and Publius Lucius Cosconianus

as Suffect consuls
Consul of the Roman Empire
126
with Gaius Eggius Ambibulus
Succeeded by
Lucius Valerius Propinquus,
and Gaius Eggius Ambibulus
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