Julianus is the

cognomen A ''cognomen'' (; plural ''cognomina''; from ''con-'' "together with" and ''(g)nomen'' "name") was the third name of a citizen of ancient Rome, under Roman naming conventions. Initially, it was a nickname, but lost that purpose when it became here ...

of a

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a letter ...

senator A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the el ...

whose tenure as

suffect consul A consul held the highest elected political office of the Roman Republic ( to 27 BC), and ancient Romans considered the consulship the second-highest level of the ''cursus honorum'' (an ascending sequence of public offices to which politic ...

with one Castus as his colleague, is known from a number of brick stamps. A number of experts have surmised he is to be identified with a

proconsul A proconsul was an official of ancient Rome who acted on behalf of a consul. A proconsul was typically a former consul. The term is also used in recent history for officials with delegated authority. In the Roman Republic, military command, or ' ...

Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an area ...

mentioned in the writings of the

sophist A sophist ( el, σοφιστής, sophistes) was a teacher in ancient Greece in the fifth and fourth centuries BC. Sophists specialized in one or more subject areas, such as philosophy, rhetoric, music, athletics, and mathematics. They taught ' ...

Aelius Aristides Publius Aelius Aristides Theodorus ( grc-gre, Πόπλιος Αἴλιος Ἀριστείδης Θεόδωρος; 117–181 AD) was a Greek orator and author considered to be a prime example as a member of the Second Sophistic, a group of celebra ...

. In 1944, Herbert Bloch noted that bricks produced in Rome between AD 110 and 164 often bore a stamp with the year they were produced in, dated according to the eponymous or ordinary consul of the year, with the exception of four groups of bricks which were dated by the suffect consuls in office for part of that year. Of these four pairs of suffect consuls, he was able to identify and date the tenures of all of them except for the pair Julianus and Castus. This pair he could state that, based on the form of the stamp, probably held office in a ''

nundinium Nundinium was a Latin word derived from the word '' nundinum'', which referred to the cycle of days observed by the Romans. During the Roman Empire, ''nundinium'' came to mean the duration of a single consulship among several in a calendar year. S ...

'' in the period 127-134 Several more examples of bricks stamped with the cognomina of these consuls have since been found. This Julianus is frequently identified with the proconsul Julianus mentioned in the ''Fourth Sacred Discourse'' of Aristides. Further, an inscription from

Ephesus Ephesus (; grc-gre, Ἔφεσος, Éphesos; tr, Efes; may ultimately derive from hit, 𒀀𒉺𒊭, Apaša) was a city in ancient Greece on the coast of Ionia, southwest of present-day Selçuk in İzmir Province, Turkey. It was built in t ...

, datable to 145, mentions a proconsul ..ianus, who has been identified with Aristides' Julianus. Consuls whom the

sortition In governance, sortition (also known as selection by lottery, selection by lot, allotment, demarchy, stochocracy, aleatoric democracy, democratic lottery, and lottocracy) is the selection of political officials as a random sample from a larger ...

selected for this proconsulate held it in order of their consulate, after a period of 15 years, which would fit a consulate c. 130. Further identification of this Julianus is less certain; two possible candidates have been offered. One is Tiberius Claudius Julianus, the grandnephew of

Tiberius Julius Celsus Polemaeanus Tiberius Julius Celsus Polemaeanus ( el, Τιβέριος Ἰούλιος Κέλσος Πολεμαιανός, translit=Tibérios Ioúlios Kélsos Polemaianós), commonly known as Celsus ( – before ), was an Ancient Greek military commander a ...

suffect consul in 92; this Julianus' son was

Tiberius Claudius Julianus Tiberius Claudius Julianus was a Roman senator and literary figure who held several offices in the imperial service during the later second century AD. He was suffect consul during the '' nundinium'' of September-October 154 with Sextus Calpurnius ...

, consul in 154.

Ronald Syme Sir Ronald Syme, (11 March 1903 – 4 September 1989) was a New Zealand-born historian and classicist. He was regarded as the greatest historian of ancient Rome since Theodor Mommsen and the most brilliant exponent of the history of the Roman ...

"The Proconsuls of Asia under Antoninus Pius"
''

Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik The ''Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik'' (commonly abbreviated ZPE; "Journal of Papyrology and Epigraphy") is a peer-reviewed academic journal which contains articles that pertain to papyrology and epigraphy. It has been described as "th ...

'', 51 (1983), p. 275 The other is Tiberius Julius Julianus,

Géza Alföldy Géza Alföldy (June 7, 1935 – November 6, 2011) was a Hungarian historian of ancient history. Life Géza Alföldy was born in Budapest. He studied at the Faculty of Humanities of the University of Budapest from 1953 to 1958, where he in ...

, ''Konsulat und Senatorenstand unter der Antoninen'' (Bonn: Rudolf Habelt Verlag, 1977), p. 212 sometimes identified with Tiberius Julius Julianus Alexander, governor of

Arabia Petraea Arabia Petraea or Petrea, also known as Rome's Arabian Province ( la, Provincia Arabia; ar, العربية البترائية; grc, Ἐπαρχία Πετραίας Ἀραβίας) or simply Arabia, was a frontier province of the Roman Empi ...

in 125.

References

2nd-century Romans Suffect consuls of Imperial Rome Roman governors of Asia