Quintus Fabius Memmius Symmachus (383/384 – after 402) was a politician of the

Roman empire The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post- Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings around the Mediter ...

, member of the influential family of the Symmachi.

Biography

He was son of the orator and politician

Quintus Aurelius Symmachus Quintus Aurelius Symmachus signo Eusebius (, ; c. 345 – 402) was a Roman statesman, orator, and man of letters. He held the offices of governor of proconsular Africa in 373, urban prefect of Rome in 384 and 385, and consul in 391. Symmachus ...

and of Rusticiana; he was born in 383/384. Memmius had an elder sister, Galla, who married Nicomachus Flavianus, son of

Virius Nicomachus Flavianus Virius Nicomachus Flavianus (334–394 AD) was a grammarian, a historian and a politician of the Roman Empire. A pagan and close friend of Quintus Aurelius Symmachus, he was Praetorian prefect of Italy in 390–392. Under the usurper Eugenius (3 ...

. At the age of ten, he became quaestor, celebrating the public games connected with his office in December 393. Memmius was well educated, and studied

Greek language Greek ( el, label= Modern Greek, Ελληνικά, Elliniká, ; grc, Ἑλληνική, Hellēnikḗ) is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, native to Greece, Cyprus, southern Italy ( Calabria and Salento), southe ...

; his father approved his style in writing letters and, in 401, he studied with a Gallic rhetor as his tutor. The year 401 marked several important events in Memmius' life: he married the granddaughter of Virius Nicomachus Flavianus;It was probably in this occasion that the bond between the two aristocratic, pagan families was celebrated with the issue of a

diptych A diptych (; from the Greek δίπτυχον, ''di'' "two" + '' ptychē'' "fold") is any object with two flat plates which form a pair, often attached by hinge. For example, the standard notebook and school exercise book of the ancient world w ...

, whose valves are entitled one ''Nicomachorum'' and the other ''Symmachorum'' (Serena Ensoli, Eugenio La Rocca, ''Aurea Roma. Dalla città pagana alla città cristiana'', L'ERMA di BRETSCHNEIDER, 2000, , p. 467). he also celebrated the games connected with the second step in his ''

cursus honorum The ''cursus honorum'' (; , or more colloquially 'ladder of offices') was the sequential order of public offices held by aspiring politicians in the Roman Republic and the early Roman Empire. It was designed for men of senatorial rank. The '' ...

'', the office of

praetor 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 vari ...

(these games were postponed from 400 in order to allow Aurelius Symmachus to be present and cost 2000 pounds of gold). It was probably Memmius who, belonging to a family practicing the old Roman religion, built a temple devoted to

Flora Flora is all the plant life present in a particular region or time, generally the naturally occurring (indigenous (ecology), indigenous) native plant, native plants. Sometimes bacteria and fungi are also referred to as flora, as in the terms '' ...

in Rome; he is also the author of a dedicatory inscription in honour of his father-in-law Flavianus ( CIL, VI, 1782). After his father's death ''ca.'' 402, Memmius edited part of his correspondence (which Symmachus himself had likely started to do).

Notes

Bibliography

Arnold Hugh Martin Jones Arnold Hugh Martin Jones FBA (9 March 1904 – 9 April 1970) (known as A. H. M. Jones or Hugo Jones) was a prominent 20th-century British historian of classical antiquity, particularly of the later Roman Empire. Biography Jones's best-known wor ...

John Robert Martindale John Robert Martindale (born 1935) is a British academic historian, specializing in the later Roman and Byzantine empires. Martindale's major publications are his magnum opus, the three volumes of '' Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire'', b ...

, John Morris, "Q. Fabius Memmius Symmachus 10", ''

The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire ''Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire'' (abbreviated as ''PLRE'') is a work of Roman prosopography published in a set of three volumes collectively describing many of the people attested to have lived in the Roman Empire from AD 260, the date ...

'', Cambridge University Press, 1971, , pp. 1046–1047. {{DEFAULTSORT:Symmachus, Quintus Fabius Memmius 4th-century Romans 5th-century Romans 380s births 5th-century deaths Year of birth uncertain Year of death unknown Imperial Roman praetors Quintus Fabius Memmius Symmachus, Quintus Fabius Memmius Symmachus, Quintus Fabius Late-Roman-era pagans