Anicius Hermogenianus Olybrius ( 395–397) was a politician and aristocrat of the

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

Life

Olybrius was a son of

Sextus Petronius Probus Sextus Claudius Petronius Probus ( 358–390) was a leading Roman aristocrat of the later 4th century AD, renowned for his wealth, power and social connections. The son of the consul Petronius Probinus, he married Anicia Faltonia Proba and ha ...

, one of the most influential men of his era and consul in 371, and wife and cousin

Anicia Faltonia Proba Anicia Faltonia Proba (died in Africa, 432) was a Roman noblewoman of the ''gens'' Anicia. Biography Proba's father was Quintus Clodius Hermogenianus Olybrius (consul in 379); the famous poet Faltonia Betitia Proba was her grandmother. She marri ...

. His brothers were Anicius Probinus and

Anicius Petronius Probus Anicius Petronius Probus ( 395–406 AD) was a politician of the Western Roman Empire. Biography A member of the ''gens'' Anicia, he was the son of Sextus Claudius Petronius Probus. (consul in 371) and of Anicia Faltonia Proba;. his elder br ...

. His sister was Anicia Proba. Olybrius was raised with his brother Probinus in Rome, where he was born. He and his brother Anicius Probinus shared the consulate in 395, while both were very young;

Claudian Claudius Claudianus, known in English as Claudian (; c. 370 – c. 404 AD), was a Latin poet associated with the court of the Roman emperor Honorius at Mediolanum (Milan), and particularly with the general Stilicho. His work, written almost e ...

dedicated ''Panegyricus de consulatu Probini et Olybrii'' to the brothers on this occasion. Although they belonged to a traditionally pagan senatorial family, Olybrius and Probinus were

Christians Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words ''Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρ� ...

Arusianus Messius Arusianus Messius, or Messus, Latin grammarian, flourished in the 4th century. Life He was the author of a small extant work ''Exempla Elocutionum'', dedicated to Olybrius and Probinus, consuls for the year 395. It contains an alphabetical list, ...

dedicated his ''Exempla elocutionem'' to both brothers, and

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 ...

addressed a letter to both in 397 (''Epistles'', v). He married his cousin Anicia Juliana and had: one son, Anicius Probus (''

fl. ''Floruit'' (; abbreviated fl. or occasionally flor.; from Latin for "they flourished") denotes a date or period during which a person was known to have been alive or active. In English, the unabbreviated word may also be used as a noun indicatin ...

'' 424-459),

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 ...

in 424 and ''vir illustris'' in 459, married to Adelphia, daughter of Valerius Adelphius and paternal granddaughter of Valerius Adelphius Bassus (''

'' 383 and 392), ''vir consularis'' and ''consul. Venet.'' in 383 and in 392, and great-granddaughter of Lucius Valerius Septimius Bassus and his possible wife Adelphia, as their son's ''nomina'' and ''cognomen'' suggest; and one daughter, Demetrias.Anne Kurdok, "''Demetrias ancilla dei'': Anicia Demetrias and the problem of the missing patron", in

Kate Cooper Kate Cooper (born 1960) is a Professor of History and former head of the History Department at Royal Holloway, University of London, a role to which she was appointed in September 2017 and she stood down in 2019. She was previously Professor of A ...

, Julia Hillner, ''Religion, dynasty and patronage in early Christian Rome, 300-900'', Cambridge University Press, 2007, , pp. 190-224.

Notes

Sources

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 Martindale, John Morris, ''

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 ...

'' (PLRE). vol. 1, Cambridge 1971, p. 639. * Hartmut Leppin, ''Theodosius der Große. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft'', Darmstadt 2003, p. 222. {{Authority control 4th-century Christians 4th-century Romans 4th-century Roman consuls Olybrius, Hermogenianus Imperial Roman consuls Year of death unknown