Sextus Papinius Allenius was 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 lette ...

senator of the First Century AD. He was a ''

consul ordinarius 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 AD 36 with

Quintus Plautius Quintus Plautius was a Roman senator, who was active during the Principate. Life He was consul ''ordinarius'' for the year 36 as the colleague of Sextus Papinius Allenius. Nothing more is known about his senatorial career. He was the son of Au ...

as his colleague. Allenius is known for introducing two fruits to Italy:

jujube Jujube (), sometimes jujuba, known by the scientific name ''Ziziphus jujuba'' and also called red date, Chinese date, and Chinese jujube, is a species in the genus '' Ziziphus'' in the buckthorn family Rhamnaceae. Description It is a smal ...

(''zizipha'') which he brought from Syria; and a variety of

crabapple ''Malus'' ( or ) is a genus of about 30–55 species of small deciduous trees or shrubs in the family Rosaceae, including the domesticated orchard apple, crab apples, wild apples, and rainberries. The genus is native to the temperate zone o ...

(''tuber'') which he found in

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

. According to

Pliny the Elder Gaius Plinius Secundus (AD 23/2479), called Pliny the Elder (), was a Roman author, naturalist and natural philosopher, and naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and a friend of the emperor Vespasian. He wrote the encyclopedic ' ...

, Allenius had grown them in his camp from slips; and he adds about the crabapple that "the fruit is more like a berry than an apple, but the trees make a particularly good decoration for terraces."

Life and career

Allenius was a native of Patavium (modern

Padua Padua ( ; it, Padova ; vec, Pàdova) is a city and ''comune'' in Veneto, northern Italy. Padua is on the river Bacchiglione, west of Venice. It is the capital of the province of Padua. It is also the economic and communications hub of the ...

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 ...

notes, "His second name may be presumed maternal" and notes two

equestrian The word equestrian is a reference to equestrianism, or horseback riding, derived from Latin ' and ', "horse". Horseback riding (or Riding in British English) Examples of this are: * Equestrian sports *Equestrian order, one of the upper classes i ...

officers with similar names: Marcus Allenius Crassus Cossonius, and lenius C.f. Strabo.Syme
"Eight Consuls from Patavium"
''Papers of the British School at Rome'', 51 (1983), p. 104 Ségolène Demougin would go further, and agrees with D. McAlindon that Allenius was originally of the equestrian order, and admitted to the Senate upon becoming a quaestor between the years AD 15 and 20. His career is known from a well-preserved inscription that is sparse in its details -- which is typical for the early

Principate The Principate is the name sometimes given to the first period of the Roman Empire from the beginning of the reign of Augustus in 27 BC to the end of the Crisis of the Third Century in AD 284, after which it evolved into the so-called Dominate. ...

. It records that Allenius was a

military tribune A military tribune (Latin ''tribunus militum'', "tribune of the soldiers") was an officer of the Roman army who ranked below the legate and above the centurion. Young men of Equestrian rank often served as military tribune as a stepping stone ...

(but not in which legion), quaestor,

legatus A ''legatus'' (; anglicised as legate) was a high-ranking Roman military officer in the Roman Army, equivalent to a modern high-ranking general officer. Initially used to delegate power, the term became formalised under Augustus as the officer ...

under

Tiberius Tiberius Julius Caesar Augustus (; 16 November 42 BC – 16 March AD 37) was the second Roman emperor. He reigned from AD 14 until 37, succeeding his stepfather, the first Roman emperor Augustus. Tiberius was born in Rome in 42 BC. His father ...

plebeian tribune Tribune of the plebs, tribune of the people or plebeian tribune ( la, tribunus plebis) was the first office of the Roman state that was open to the plebeians, and was, throughout the history of the Republic, the most important check on the power o ...

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 ...

, propraetorian legate for Tiberius, and then consul. He also held the priestly office of ''

Quindecimviri sacris faciundis In ancient Rome, the were the fifteen () members of a college (''collegium'') with priestly duties. They guarded the Sibylline Books, scriptures which they consulted and interpreted at the request of the Senate. This ''collegium'' also oversaw ...

''. Syme offers some explication of these offices: the first time as legatus under Tiberius, Allenius was commander of a legion, although its identity is unknown; the date he was praetor is AD 27; the time as propraetorian legate was a governorship in one of the five praetorian provinces under imperial control. Syme also implies that Allenius owed his consulship to the influence of

Lucius Vitellius Lucius Vitellius (before 7 BC – AD 51) was the youngest of four sons of procurator Publius Vitellius and the only one who did not die through politics. He was consul three times, which was unusual during the Roman empire for someone who was ...

. "The Papinii met a rapid and melancholy end," writes Syme. Allenius had two sons: one son, also named Sextus Papinius, committed suicide in 37 to escape advances from his mother, who was subsequently called before the Senate to answer for her acts; the other son was put to death by Caligula. Dio Cassius, LIX.25.5

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Papinius Allenius, Sextus Ancient Romans from Padua Imperial Roman consuls 1st-century Romans