Marcus Pedo Vergilianus

Marcus Pedo Vergilianus was consul at the beginning of AD 115, during the reign of Trajan. He died in an earthquake toward the end of that year.

Career

Vergilianus was a Roman senator early in the second century. In the year 115, he was consul ''ordinarius'', serving for the month of January, with Lucius Vipstanus Messalla as his colleague. Vergilianus resigned at the end of the month, and was succeeded by Titus Statilius Maximus Severus Hadrianus, who served alongside Messalla through the end of April.

Vergilianus is best known for having been killed in the earthquake that struck Antioch toward the end of the year. The city and the surrounding region suffered tremendous damage, and the emperor Trajan, who was at Antioch preparing for a campaign against the Parthians, barely escaped death by climbing out the window of the house where he was staying, sustaining only minor injuries. Although implied by Cassius Dio to have died during his term of office, Vergilianus must have resigned by the kalends of February, when his successor was inaugurated, while the earthquake occurred on December 13. Thus, while Vergilianus was of consular rank, he was not serving as consul at the time of his death, and was probably at Antioch as part of Trajan's retinue.

Nomenclature

Although a relatively obscure figure in Roman history, Vergilianus has received additional scrutiny due to the uncertainty surrounding his proper name. In epigraphy, he is referred to variously as ''Marcus Pedo Vergilianus'' or ''Marcus Vergilianus Pedo''; other inscriptions refer to him simply as ''Pedo'', or as ''Vergilianus''. However, it is almost certain that these names do not comprise his complete nomenclature. ''Pedo'' is a Roman surname, or cognomen, not a ''nomen gentilicium'', and while some share the morphology of ''Vergilianus'', this is probably an agnomen, a type of surname indicating the consul's descent from the Vergilia gens.Salomies, "Three Notes on Roman Nomina", p. 201 (note 6). In imperial times, it was not uncommon for members of the Roman aristocracy to possess extended and occasionally cumbersome nomenclature, indicating their descent from different illustrious families. These names could be rearranged by the bearer at will, and nomenclature was frequently abbreviated for convenience. Even under the Roman Republic, nomina were occasionally omitted for persons whose gentes could be inferred from familiar surnames.

Werner Eck concludes that Vergilianus was probably a member of the Popilia gens, based on the similarity of his name with several members of that family who achieved prominence during the second century, including Gaius Popilius Carus Pedo, consul at the end of 147, Popilius Pedo Apronianus, consul in 191, and Marcus Popilius Pedo, one of the Salii Palatini. This reasoning is followed by ''Prosopographia Imperii Romani'', and noted by both Olli Salomies and Ronald Syme, although elsewhere Syme mentions that ''Pompeius'' is also a possibility, since a consular by the name of ''Pompeius Pedo'' had been executed by Claudius.Syme, "Polyonymous Consuls", p. 198.

References

Bibliography

* Lucius Annaeus Seneca (Seneca the Younger), ''Apocolocyntosis Divi Claudii'' (The Gourdification of the Divine Claudius).
* Lucius Cassius Dio Cocceianus (Cassius Dio), ''Roman History''.
* John Malalas, ''Chronographia''.
* August Pauly, Georg Wissowa, ''et alii'', '' Realencyclopädie der Classischen Altertumswissenschaft'' (Scientific Encyclopedia of the Knowledge of Classical Antiquities, abbreviated ''PW''), J. B. Metzler, Stuttgart (1894–1980).
* Edmund Groag, Arthur Stein, Leiva Petersen, and Klaus Wachtel, ''Prosopographia Imperii Romani'' (The Prosopography of the Roman Empire, Second Edition, abbreviated ''PIR²''), Berlin (1933–2015).
* Ronald Syme
"Spaniards at Tivoli"
in ''Ancient Society'', vol. 13/14 (1982/1983)
"The Paternity of Polyonymous Consuls"
in ''Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik'', vol. 61 (1985).
* Robert K. Sherk, ''The Roman Empire: Augustus to Hadrian'' Cambridge University Press (1988).
* Olli Salomies, ''Adoptive and Polyonymous Nomenclature in the Roman Empire'', Societas Scientiarum Fenica, Helsinki (1992)
"Three Notes on Roman Nomina"
in ''Arctos'', vol. XXXII, pp. 197–224 (1998).
* Werner Eck, Gianfranco Paci, and E. Percossi Serenelli, "Per una nuova edizione dei Fasti Potentini", in ''Picus'', vol. 23, pp. 51–108 (2003).
* Alison E. Cooley, ''The Cambridge Manual of Latin Epigraphy'', Cambridge University Press (2012).

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pedo Vergilianus, Marcus
2nd-century Romans
Deaths in earthquakes
Imperial Roman consuls
Popillii
Roman consuls who died in office