Lucius Nonius Asprenas (suffect consul AD 6)

Lucius Nonius Asprenas (fl. 1st century AD) was a Roman Senator who was active in the reigns of Augustus and Tiberius. Asprenas was appointed suffect consul to replace Lucius Arruntius the Younger on 1 July AD 6.

Biography

A member of the gens Nonii, Asprenas was the son of Lucius Nonius Asprenas, an intimate friend of the emperor Augustus, and Quinctilla, a sister of Publius Quinctilius Varus.[1] His brother was Sextus Nonius Quinctilianus, ordinary consul of the year 8.[2]

In 4 BC, Nonius Asprenas served as a military tribune in Syria under his uncle Varus.[3] In AD 9, Nonius Asprenas was serving as a consular legate in Germania again under Varus. When Varus and his legions perished at the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest, Asprenas was in command of two legions at Moguntiacum.[4] Hearing news of the disaster, he led his two legions down the River Rhine to protect the winter camps and rescue the survivors of the battle. However, he was then accused of helping himself to the property of the dead officers.[5]

The accusation did not hurt his career, for in AD 14/15, Nonius Asprenas won the sortition and became proconsular governor of Africa.[6] The historian Tacitus reported that while governor, he sent soldiers to kill Sempronius Gracchus on the orders of Tiberius.[7] In AD 20, Asprenas questioned in the Senate the omission of Claudius from an official vote of thanks for the imperial family’s pursuit of justice on behalf of the recently deceased Germanicus.[8]

Family

Nonius Asprenas married a daughter of Lucius Calpurnius Piso, Calpurnia L. Pisonis f., and they had three sons: Lucius Nonius Asprenas, suffect consul in AD 29; Publius Nonius Asprenas Calpurnius Serranus, ordinary consul in 38; and Nonius Asprenas Calpurnius Torquatus.[2]

Sources

References

  1. ↑ Syme, p. 315
  2. 1 2 Ladislav Vidman, "Zum Stemma der Nonii Asprenates", Listy filologické / Folia philologica, 105 (1982), pp. 1-5
  3. ↑ Syme, pp. 314f
  4. ↑ Syme, p. 60
  5. ↑ Syme, p. 431
  6. ↑ Syme, p. 132
  7. ↑ Smith, p. 388
  8. ↑ Tacitus, Annales, III.18
Political offices
Preceded by
Marcus Aemilius Lepidus,
and Lucius Arruntius
as Ordinary consuls		 Suffect Consul of the Roman Empire
AD 6		 Succeeded by
Quintus Caecilius Metellus Creticus Silanus,
and Aulus Licinius Nerva Silianus
as Ordinary consuls
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