Quintus Aelius Tubero was a
Stoic philosopher and a pupil of
Panaetius of Rhodes. He had a reputation for talent and legal knowledge. He might have been a tribune of the plebs in 130 BC. He also possibly became a
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 ...
in 118 BC.
Cicero spoke of his character in parallel to his oratorical style: "harsh, unpolished, and austere." Despite this, Cicero also calls him "a man of the most rigid virtue, and strictly conformable to the doctrine he professed."
He was the grandson of
Lucius Aemilius Paullus Macedonicus, Thus, he was both a cousin of
Marcus Porcius Cato Licinianus, and also the nephew of
Scipio Aemilianus. This association, alongside the approval of Panaetius, gave him access to the
Scipionic Circle The Scipionic Circle, or the Circle of Scipio, was a group of philosophers, poets, and politicians patronized by their namesake, Scipio Aemilianus. Together they would discuss Greek culture, literature, and humanism. Alongside their philhellenic ...
.
When Scipio Aemilianus died mysteriously in 129 BC, Tubero was responsible for the funeral arrangements. With Cynic-like aesthetics, he arranged Punic couches with goatskin covers and Samian pottery. The lack of public grandeur, allegedly, lost him the election for
praetorship
Praetor ( , ), also pretor, was the title granted by the government of Ancient Rome to a man acting in one of two official capacities: (i) the commander of an army, and (ii) as an elected ''magistratus'' (magistrate), assigned to discharge variou ...
.
Panaetius wrote an epistle to Tubero concerning endurance of pain.
[Cicero, De Finibus, iv. 9, 23] A scholar of Panaetius dedicated a treatise called ''De Officiis'' to Tubero.
References
Bibliography
; Modern sources
*
T. Robert S. Broughton, ''The Magistrates of the Roman Republic'', American Philological Association, 1952–1960.
{{Authority control
Roman-era Stoic philosophers