Lucius Apronius 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 and
suffect consul in 8 AD.
Achievements
He became
suffect consul in 8 AD, and was a military commander active during the reign of
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 ...
.
Apronius shared in the achievements of
Gaius Vibius Postumus
Gaius Vibius Postumus was a Roman senator, who flourished under the reign of Augustus. He was suffect consul for the latter half of AD 5 with Gaius Ateius Capito as his colleague. Ronald Syme identifies him as a ''novus homo'' from Lavinum in Ap ...
and earned the ''
ornamenta triumphalia'' for his distinguished valor in the
Dalmatian revolt and the
Germanic Wars
This is a chronology of warfare between the Romans and various Germanic peoples between 113 BC and 476. The nature of these wars varied through time between Roman conquest, Germanic uprisings and later Germanic invasions of the Western Roman ...
, along with
Aulus Caecina Severus and
Gaius Silius
Gaius Silius (died AD 24) was a Roman senator who achieved successes as a general over German barbarians following the disaster of the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest. For this achievement he was appointed consul in AD 13 with Lucius Munatius Pla ...
in 15 AD. Once back in Rome, Apronius led a motion in the year 22 AD in the
Senate that decreed that votive offerings should be made due to the successful prosecution of
Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso, accused of murdering
Germanicus in 20 AD.
In the year 23 AD, Apronius (along with a former proconsul of Africa,
Lucius Aelius Lamia) vouched for the innocence of a man accused of supplying grain to
Numidian insurgent
Tacfarinas
Tacfarinas ( Latinised form of Berber Tikfarin or Takfarin; died AD 24) was a Numidian Berber from Thagaste, located in the province of Proconsular Africa (now Souk Ahras, in Algeria), who was a deserter from the Roman army who led his own Mus ...
. However, as proconsul of Africa at the time, Apronius also severely punished a
cohort
Cohort or cohortes may refer to:
* Cohort (educational group), a group of students working together through the same academic curriculum
* Cohort (floating point), a set of different encodings of the same numerical value
* Cohort (military unit ...
of
Legio III Augusta
("Third Augustan Legion") was a legion of the Imperial Roman army. Its origin may have been the Republican 3rd Legion which served the general Pompey during his civil war against Gaius Julius Caesar (49–45 BC). It supported the general Oct ...
for their defeat at Tacfarinas' hands with
decimation.
In 28 AD, as a
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 ...
of
Lower Germany in modern-day
Belgium
Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...
, Apronius led the combined forces from
Upper Germany in the siege of a Roman fort by the
Frisii
The Frisii were an ancient Germanic tribe living in the low-lying region between the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta and the River Ems, and the presumed or possible ancestors of the modern-day ethnic Dutch.
The Frisii lived in the coastal are ...
, only to be defeated soon after in a pitched battle at
Baduhenna Wood.
Descendants
He is known to have had at least three children: one son,
Lucius Apronius Caesianus, who became consul in 39 AD, and two daughters, one married to
Gnaeus Cornelius Lentulus Gaetulicus, who became consul in 26 AD, the other to
Marcus Plautius Silvanus, who became
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 24 AD.
[Tacitus, ''Annales'' IV.22]
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Apronius, Lucius
1st-century Romans
Roman governors of Africa
Roman governors of Germania Inferior
Suffect consuls of Imperial Rome