Gaius Julius Proculus

Gaius Julius Proculus was a Roman senator, who was held a number of imperial appointments during the reign of Trajan. He was suffect consul in the nundinium of May–August 109 as the colleague of Gaius Aburnius Valens.[1] He is known entirely from inscriptions. Anthony Birley notes there is a plausible possibility that Proculus also held a second suffect consulate; any man recording as holding a second consulate after AD 103, held it as an ordinary consul, not as a suffect consul.[2]

The origins of Proculus have been commonly surmised as in Gallia Narbonensis, based on his membership in the Roman tribe "Voltinia", that he was a Julius son of a man with the praenomen Marcus, and his cognomen Proculus. However Birley notes Proculus could have had his origins instead in Larinum. Birley also offers two possible relatives for Proculus—Marcus Julius Ro[mu]lus, adlected into the Senate by Claudius, and his presumed son also nmed Marcus Julius Romulus, assistant to the governor of Sardinia in the term 68/69—whom Birley suggests were Proculus' grandfather and father respectively.[3]

Career

His cursus honorum is partially known from an inscription set up at Antium in Campania to commemorate his patronage of the city.[4] Proculus began his career as one of the tresviri monetalis, the most prestigious of the four boards that comprise the vigintiviri; assignment to this board was usually allocated to patricians or favored individuals.[5] This was followed by quaestor, as the candidate of the emperor another indication of his favored status. Upon completion of this traditional Republican magistracy Proculus would be enrolled in the Senate. This was followed by a commission as a military tribune in the Legio IV Scythica, then stationed at Zeugma in Syria; upon returning to Rome, Proculus was appointed ab actis for the emperor Trajan. Then advanced to the next two traditional Republican magistracies followed: plebeian tribune and praetor.

After completing his praetorship, Proculus was appointed to a series of offices. First he was commissioned legatus or commander of Legio VI Ferrata, then stationed at Samosata; Birley dates his command around the years 104-106.[6] Next was legatus pro praetor of the Transpadene region. Proculus then was appointed to supervise the census of the imperial province of Gallia Lugdunensis, and his final appointment prior to his consulate was curator operum poblicorum. Also before his consulate Proculus was made a fetiales and admitted to the Quindecimviri sacris faciundis, the Roman priesthood entrusted with the care of the Sibylline oracles.

His career after his consulate is disputed. An incompletely preserved inscription from Larinum, where most of the name of the subject is missing, nevertheless attests to a second consulate; the priesthoods and governorship in Lugdunensis and as monetalis it lists, combined with the last portion of the subject's cognomen has convinced experts to identify the honorand as Gaius Julius Proculus.[7] The problem is that he is not attested as an ordinary consul, let alone after the year 109; thus he must have been a suffect consul for a second time during the reign of Hadrian.

References

  1. ↑ Alison E. Cooley, The Cambridge Manual of Latin Epigraphy (Cambridge: University Press, 2012), p.&mbsp;468
  2. ↑ This phenomena is discussed in Birley, "Hadrian and Greek Senators", Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik, 116 (1997), pp. 230-236
  3. ↑ Birley, "Hadrian and Greek Senators", p. 233
  4. ↑ CIL X, 6658
  5. ↑ Birley, The Fasti of Roman Britain (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981), pp. 4f
  6. ↑ Birley, "Hadrian and Greek Senators", p. 234
  7. ↑ Birley, "Hadrian and Greek Senators", p. 231
Political offices
Preceded by
Gnaeus Antonius Fuscus,
and Philopappos
as suffect consuls		 Suffect consul of the Roman Empire
109
with Gaius Aburnius Valens,		 Succeeded by
Marcus Peducaeus Priscinus, and
Servius Cornelius Scipio Salvidienus Orfitus
as ordinary consuls
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