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 letter ...
senator
A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the el ...
, who was active during the
Flavian dynasty
The Flavian dynasty ruled the Roman Empire between AD 69 and 96, encompassing the reigns of Vespasian (69–79), and his two sons Titus (79–81) and Domitian (81–96). The Flavians rose to power during the civil war of 69, known as ...
. He was
suffect consul
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 the ''
nundinium Nundinium was a Latin word derived from the word '' nundinum'', which referred to the cycle of days observed by the Romans. During the Roman Empire, ''nundinium'' came to mean the duration of a single consulship among several in a calendar year.
S ...
'' of March-June 79 as the colleague of
Lucius Junius Caesennius Paetus
Lucius Junius Caesennius Paetus (c. 45 - after 94) was a Roman senator active during the Flavian dynasty. He was suffect consul for the ''nundinium'' of March-June 79 with Publius Calvisius Ruso as his colleague.
Caesennius was the son and name ...
. A shadowy and enigmatic figure, many of the facts of Ruso's life have been debated by the experts.
It is not disputed that Ruso was the son of the homonymous consul of 53. However, the existence of a Publius Calvisius Ruso Julius Frontinus, attested by an inscription found in
Pisidian Antioch
Antioch in Pisidia – alternatively Antiochia in Pisidia or Pisidian Antioch ( el, Ἀντιόχεια τῆς Πισιδίας) and in Roman Empire, Latin: ''Antiochia Caesareia'' or ''Antiochia Colonia Caesarea'' – was a city in th ...
, complicates matters. At first, the consensus accepted
Hermann Dessau
Hermann Dessau (6 April 1856, Frankfurt am Main – 12 April 1931, Berlin) was a German ancient historian and epigrapher. He is noted for a key work of textual criticism published in 1889 on the ''Historia Augusta'', which uncovered reasons to ...
's explanation that the two were the same man, and the inscription from Antioch merely demonstrated that Ruso had a polyonomous name, despite that the inscription also attested to a governorship of the combined province of Cappadocia-Galatia that had to be dated to the years 104 to 109. Dessau further identified this man as the husband of Dasumia, and thus great-grandfather of the emperor
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (Latin: áːɾkus̠ auɾέːli.us̠ antɔ́ːni.us̠ English: ; 26 April 121 – 17 March 180) was Roman emperor from 161 to 180 AD and a Stoic philosopher. He was the last of the rulers known as the Five Good ...
.
This was the accepted consensus until the 1980s when
Eric Birley
Eric Barff Birley, Ronald Syme built upon Birley's arguments, and proposed that the inscription from Antioch referred to a younger half-brother of Ruso, named Publius Calvisius Ruso Julius Frontinus, the ancestor of Marcus Aurelius. Syme also proposed that the younger brother, Ruso Julius Frontinus, was the son of a sister of the prominent consular, Frontinus, explaining the similarities of name. Syme also proposed that the older son, Calvisius Ruso, had married a Dasumia, basing his reasoning on the fragmentary text of the ''
Testamentum Dasumii The Testamentum Dasumii refers to an inscription in several pieces found in Rome, that bears the only Roman will inscribed on stone. Originally presenting the complete will, while the surviving pieces of the inscription include parts of all 133 line ...
''; however, subsequent research and discoveries have weakened the possibility of a connection between the individuals mentioned in that inscription and Calvisius Ruso.
That there were two sons of the consul, one the nephew of Frontinus, has since been widely accepted -- but not unanimously. Ginette Di Vita-Évrard, in a paper published a few years after Syme's, argued that our Calvisius Ruso was the one who married Frontinus' sister, and thus Ruso Julius Frontinus was his son.Di Vita-Évrard "Des Calvisii Rusoles à Licinius Sura" ''Mélanges de l'Ecole française de Rome; Antiquité'', 99 (1987), pp. 281-33 Based on the lack of evidence for these personages, one cannot easily decide which conclusion is closest to the truth.