Senecio Memmius Afer 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 Roman civilization *Epistle to the Romans, shortened to Romans, a letter w ...

senator A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or Legislative chamber, chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the Ancient Rome, ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior ...

active in the last quarter of the first century AD. He was

suffect consul The consuls were the highest elected public officials of the Roman Republic ( to 27 BC). Romans considered the consulship the second-highest level of the ''cursus honorum''an ascending sequence of public offices to which politicians aspire ...

for the '' nundinium'' of June to July AD 99 as the colleague of Publius Sulpicius Lucretius Barba. Afer is known primarily from inscriptions. Memmius Afer's origins are disputed. Edward Champlin believes he was "almost certainly African and perhaps from Thugga", while John Grainger suggests that his origins were in Spain.

Ronald Syme Sir Ronald Syme, (11 March 1903 – 4 September 1989) was a New Zealand-born historian and classicist. He was regarded as the greatest historian of ancient Rome since Theodor Mommsen and the most brilliant exponent of the history of the Roma ...

, noting Afer's

tribe The term tribe is used in many different contexts to refer to a category of human social group. The predominant worldwide use of the term in English is in the discipline of anthropology. The definition is contested, in part due to conflict ...

was "Galeria", states that it is attested for only one city in North Africa,

Hadrumetum Hadrumetum, also known by #Names, many variant spellings and names, was a Phoenician Phoenician colonies, colony that pre-dated Carthage. It subsequently became one of the most important cities in Roman Africa before Vandal Kingdom, Vandal and Uma ...

, while later members of the

gentilicium The (; or simply ) was a hereditary name borne by the peoples of Roman Italy and later by the citizens of the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire. It was originally the name of one's (family or clan) by patrilineal descent. However, as Rome expan ...

Memmius "tend to come from Bulla Regia or Gigthis"; on the other hand, Syme states the

cognomen A ''cognomen'' (; : ''cognomina''; from ''co-'' "together with" and ''(g)nomen'' "name") was the third name of a citizen of ancient Rome, under Roman naming conventions. Initially, it was a nickname, but lost that purpose when it became hereditar ...

Afer is well-attested in Spain, while he counted eighteen instances of the gentilicium Memmius in the Spanish provinces. Afer was the father-in-law of Tiberius Catius Caesius Fronto, the son of the poet

Silius Italicus Tiberius Catius Asconius Silius Italicus (, c. 26 – c. 101 AD) was a Roman senator, orator and epic poet of the Silver Age of Latin literature. His only surviving work is the 17-book '' Punica'', an epic poem about the Second Punic War and the ...

. Two inscriptions, one from Tibur, the other from North Africa, name his son, Lucius Memmius Tuscillus Senecio; the North African inscription describes Afer as ''pronepoti'' and Senecio as ''nepoti'', indicating that the family continued for two more generations. His ''

cursus honorum The , or more colloquially 'ladder of offices'; ) was the sequential order of public offices held by aspiring politicians in the Roman Republic and the early Roman Empire. It was designed for men of senatorial rank. The comprised a mixture of ...

'' is known only from the Tibur inscription, which has preserved only two of the offices Memmius Afer held. The first on the list is the imperial province of

Gallia Aquitania Gallia Aquitania (, ), also known as Aquitaine or Aquitaine Gaul, was a list of Roman provinces, province of the Roman Empire. It lies in present-day southwest France and the Comarques of Catalonia, comarca of Val d'Aran in northeast Spain, wher ...

;

Werner Eck Werner Eck (born 17 December 1939) is professor of Ancient History at Cologne University, Germany, and a noted expert on the history and epigraphy of imperial Rome.Eck, W. (2007) ''The Age of Augustus''. 2nd ed. Oxford: Blackwell, cover notes. Hi ...

dated his tenure as governor from 94 to 96. Next he was

proconsul A proconsul was an official of ancient Rome who acted on behalf of a Roman consul, 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 ...

ar governor of

Sicily Sicily (Italian language, Italian and ), officially the Sicilian Region (), is an island in the central Mediterranean Sea, south of the Italian Peninsula in continental Europe and is one of the 20 regions of Italy, regions of Italy. With 4. ...

, which Eck dated to the years 97/98. However, Paul Leunissen notes that the order of these two offices is not certain, so it is possible his governorship of Sicily may have preceded that of Aquitania. The men selected to be consuls in the year 99 numbered more than usual, and can be considered to reflect the emperor

Trajan Trajan ( ; born Marcus Ulpius Traianus, 18 September 53) was a Roman emperor from AD 98 to 117, remembered as the second of the Five Good Emperors of the Nerva–Antonine dynasty. He was a philanthropic ruler and a successful soldier ...

's choices, and the factions in the Senate he looked to for support. Both the ordinary consuls, Quintus Sosius Senecio and Aulus Cornelius Palma Frontonianus, were military men, each going on to enjoy the exceptional honor of a second consulate. Of the possibly as many as ten suffect consuls for that year, five are known; of these, two are provincials, two Italians, all of them active in government; the fifth, Afer's colleague Lucretius Barba, is only a name.Grainger, ''Nerva'', pp. 100f Afer fades from history after his consulship.

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