Anicius Probinus ( 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-Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings around the Mediterr ...

Biography

A member of the noble gens Anicia, Probinus was the son of

Sextus Claudius 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 h ...

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

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 ...

; he was then the brother of

Anicius Hermogenianus Olybrius Anicius Hermogenianus Olybrius ( 395–397) was a politician and aristocrat of the Roman Empire. Life Olybrius was a son of Sextus Petronius Probus, one of the most influential men of his era and consul in 371, and wife and cousin Anicia Faltoni ...

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 ...

and

Anicia Proba The gens Anicia (or the Anicii) was a plebeian family at ancient Rome, mentioned first towards the end of the fourth century BC. The first of the Anicii to achieve prominence under the Republic was Lucius Anicius Gallus, who conducted the war agai ...

. According to a reconstruction,Drinkwater and Elton. Probinus was the father of

Petronius Maximus Petronius Maximus ( 39731 May 455) was Roman emperor of the West for two and a half months in 455. A wealthy senator and a prominent aristocrat, he was instrumental in the murders of the Western Roman ''magister militum'', Aëtius, and the W ...

, briefly Western Roman emperor in the spring of 455. Probinus was raised with his brother Olybrius in Rome, where he was born. He and his brother Olybrius shared the consulate in 395, while both were very young;Claudian, 143-67-70.

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 ent ...

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'' (Χρι ...

. Probinus was then

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 ' ...

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 ...

in 396–397. While proconsul, in 396 he received a letter from

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 s ...

(''Epistols'', ix); on 17 March 397 he received a law preserved in the ''

Codex Theodosianus The ''Codex Theodosianus'' (Eng. Theodosian Code) was a compilation of the laws of the Roman Empire under the Christian emperors since 312. A commission was established by Emperor Theodosius II and his co-emperor Valentinian III on 26 March 429 a ...

'' (XII.5.3).

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 Symmachus addressed a letter to both in 397 (''Epistles'', v). It is known that Probinus composed verses.

Notes

Bibliography

Primary sources

, ''Panegyricus de consulatu Probini et Olybrii'' *

Secondary sources

* Arnold Hugh Martin Jones, John Robert 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 ...

'', Volume 1, Cambridge University Press, 1971, , pp. 734–735. * Drinkwater, John, and Hugh Elton, ''Fifth-Century Gaul: A Crisis of Identity?'', Cambridge University Press, 1992, , pp. 119–120. * Hartmut Leppin, ''Theodosius der Große. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft'', Darmstadt 2003, p. 222. {{end 4th-century Christians 4th-century Romans 4th-century Roman consuls Probinus Imperial Roman consuls Roman governors of Africa Politicians from Rome