Gaius Memmius Regulus

Gaius Memmius Regulus was a Roman senator of the first century, holding the consulship in AD 63.^[1]

Background and family

Regulus was born into the plebeian gens Memmia, the son of Publius Memmius Regulus, consul suffectus in AD 31, and Lollia Paulina, a woman of great beauty and considerable wealth.^[2][3][4] His grandfather, Publius Memmius Regulus, had married a woman from Ruscino, in the province of Gallia Narbonensis. His mother was the second daughter of Marcus Lollius and the noblewoman Volusia Saturnina.^[5][6]

Although the year of his birth is uncertain, Regulus was born during the second half of the reign of the emperor Tiberius. His father was governor of Achaea in AD 35, and both father and son were honored with various statues. In 38, the emperor Caligula forced the elder Regulus and Paulina to divorce, so that he could marry Paulina himself. The emperor had been impressed by reports of Paulina's beauty, and tales of her grandmother as a famous beauty before her; but Caligula soon wearied of Paulina and divorced her.^[7][8][9] She was subsequently courted by Claudius, but when he wed Agrippina, the new empress had Paulina exiled and murdered.^{[10][11][12][13]}

Political career

Regulus was appointed consul ordinarius in AD 63, during the reign of Nero. His colleague was Lucius Verginius Rufus. They served a full six months, from the Kalends of January to the Kalends of July.^[14][15] Regulus' father had died two years earlier, and did not live to see his son reach the pinnacle of his career.^[16] After his consulship, Regulus joined the priesthood of the Sodales Augustales, and later the Sodales Claudialium.^[17]

References

Bibliography

• Gaius Plinius Secundus (Pliny the Elder), Historia Naturalis (Natural History).
• Publius Cornelius Tacitus, Annales.
• Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, De Vita Caesarum (Lives of the Caesars, or The Twelve Caesars).
• Lucius Cassius Dio Cocceianus (Cassius Dio), Roman History.
• Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, William Smith, ed., Little, Brown and Company, Boston (1849).
• Theodor Mommsen et alii, Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum (The Body of Latin Inscriptions, abbreviated CIL), Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften (1853–present).
• Paul A. Gallivan, "Some Comments on the Fasti for the Reign of Nero", in Classical Quarterly, vol. 24, pp. 290–311 (1974).
• Der Neue Pauly: Enzyklopädie der Antike. Das klassische Altertum und seine Rezeptionsgeschichte, Hubert Cancik, Helmuth Schneider, eds., J. B. Metzler, Stuttgart (1996–2012).
• D. C. O'Driscoll, "Memmius Regulus", "Lollius".